IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 '• illM 
 
 Hi 
 
 " 2.0 
 
 IS 4 
 
 1.8 
 
 
 1.25 
 
 1.4 
 
 1.6 
 
 
 ^ 6" — 
 
 
 ► 
 
 p^%.. 
 
 .^' 
 
 ■S^. 
 
 /a 
 
 VI 
 
 c* 
 
 C/a 
 
 % 
 
 # 
 
 
 / 
 
 ^i^>. 
 
 '> 
 
 / 
 
 d^M 
 
 y 
 
 m 
 
 \ 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 Corpordtion 
 
 23 Wri MA>'; ^TR5ET 
 
 WEBSTER, NY 14S80 
 
 (716) lv/2-4503 
 
^ 
 
 %> A 
 
 >" c^ 
 
 6" 
 
 .<-' WJ' 
 
 
 <>' 
 
 \ 
 
 CIHM/ICMH 
 
 Microfiche 
 
 Series. 
 
 <» 
 
 CIHM/ICMH 
 Collection de 
 microfiches. 
 
 Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 
 
Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques 
 
 The Institute has attempted to obtain the best 
 original copy available for filming. Features of this 
 copy which may be bibliographically unique, 
 which may alter any of the images in the 
 reproduction, or which may significantly change 
 the usua! method of filming, are checked below. 
 
 [^ 
 
 Coloured covers/ 
 Couverture de couleur 
 
 □ Covers damaged/ 
 Couverture endommagee 
 
 □ Covers restored and/or laminated/ 
 Couverture restaurde et/ou pellicul^e 
 
 □ Cover title missing/ 
 Le titre de couverture manque 
 
 □ Coloured maps/ 
 Cartes g^ographiques en couleur 
 
 nt° 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ 
 ere de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) 
 
 □ Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ 
 Plane 
 
 D 
 
 iches et/ou illustrations en couleur 
 
 Bound with other material/ 
 Reli6 avec d'autres documents 
 
 Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion 
 along interior margin/ 
 
 La reliure serree peut causer de I'ombru ou de la 
 distortion le long de la marge intdrieure 
 
 Blank leaves added during restoration may 
 appear within the text. Whenever possible, these 
 have been omitted from filming/ 
 II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajouties 
 lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, 
 mais, lorsque cela ^tait possible, ces pages n'ont 
 pas 6t6 film^es. 
 
 Additional comments:/ 
 Comrrentaires suppl6mentaires: 
 
 L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire 
 qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details 
 de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du 
 point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier 
 une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une 
 modification dans la m^thode normale de filmage 
 sont indiquds ci-dessous. 
 
 □ 
 □ 
 
 Coloured pages/ 
 Pages de couleur 
 
 Pages damaged/ 
 Pages endommag^es 
 
 Pages restored and/or laminated/ 
 Pages restaurdes et/ou pellicul^es 
 
 Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ 
 Pages d6color6es, tachetdes ou piquees 
 
 Pages detached/ 
 Pages d^tach^es 
 
 I y Showthrough/ 
 
 □ 
 
 Transparence 
 
 Quality of prir 
 
 Quality inegale de I'impression 
 
 Includes supplementary materic 
 Comprend du materiel supplementaire 
 
 I I Quality of print varies/ 
 
 I I Includes supplementary material/ 
 
 Only edition available/ 
 Seule Edition disponible 
 
 Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata 
 slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to 
 ensure the best possible image/ 
 Les pages totalement ou partiellement 
 obsrurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, 
 etc., ont 6t6 film6es d nouveau de facon i 
 obtenir la meilleure image possible. 
 
 This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ 
 
 Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 
 
 10X 
 
 
 
 
 14X 
 
 
 
 
 18X 
 
 
 
 
 22X 
 
 
 
 
 26X 
 
 
 
 
 30X 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12X 
 
 15X 
 
 20X 
 
 24X 
 
 28X 
 
 32X 
 
tails 
 > du 
 odifier 
 une 
 mage 
 
 The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks 
 to the generosity of: 
 
 National Library of Canada 
 
 The images appearing here are the best quality 
 possible considering the condition and legibility 
 of the original copy and in keeping with the 
 filming contract specifications. 
 
 L'exemplaire filmd fut reproduit grdce d la 
 g6n6rosit6 de: 
 
 BibliothAque nationale du Canada 
 
 Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le 
 plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et 
 de la nettet6 de l'exemplaire film6, et en 
 conformity avec les conditions du contrat de 
 filmage. 
 
 Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed 
 beginning with the front cover and ending on 
 the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All 
 other original copies are filmed beginning on the 
 first page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, and ending on the last page with a printed 
 or illustrated impression. 
 
 Les exempljires originaux dont la couverture en 
 papier est imprim^e sont filmds en commenpant 
 par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la 
 dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second 
 plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires 
 originaux sont film6s en commenpant par la 
 premidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par 
 la dernidre page qui comporte une telle 
 em reinte. 
 
 The last recorded frame on each microfiche 
 shall contain the symbol -^ (meaning "CON- 
 TINUED "), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), 
 whichever applies. 
 
 Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la 
 dernidre image de chaque microfiche, selon le 
 cas: 'e symbole — ♦- signifie "A SUIVRE ", le 
 symbole V signifie "FIN". 
 
 Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at 
 different reduction ratios. Those too large to be 
 entirely included in one exposure are filmed 
 beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to 
 right and top to bottom, as many frames as 
 required. The following diagrams illustrate the 
 method: 
 
 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent §tre 
 filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. 
 Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre 
 reproduit en un seul clichd, il est film6 d partir 
 de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, 
 et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre 
 d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants 
 illustrent la mdthode. 
 
 irrata 
 to 
 
 pelure, 
 in d 
 
 n 
 
 32X 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
^: 
 
 I • 
 
^ 
 
 I « 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 FROM 
 
 REVIEVSAS 
 
 BY 
 
 aEORaE STEAVART, 
 
 D. LiTT., LL.D., D.CL. 
 
 QUEBEC : 
 
 iD^A.'W^sojsr sc CO. 
 
 1892. 
 
 fe 
 
 ■§!% 
 

/y/ 
 
\ 
 

 ESSAYS 
 
 FROM 
 
 REVIEWS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE STEWART, 
 D. LiTT.,LL.D., D.C.L. 
 
 ■•o&*<< 
 
 QUEBEC : 
 ID^A."WSOlsr <Sc CO, 
 
 1892. 
 

 Printed at the 
 
 -Chronicle" Steam Printino Office, 
 
 Quebec, 1892. 
 
To 
 
 JOHN GEORGE BOURINOT, 
 
 C.M.G., LL.D., D.C.L., 
 
 President of the Royal Society of Canada, 
 
 111 remembrance of a long, unbroken friendship, 
 
 I dedicate tfiis book. 
 
 FFICEy 
 
Jr 
 Pail 
 ithe 
 
 mn ^ 
 some 
 these 
 this I 
 H'itJt 
 Low] 
 iemh'A 
 §ie (ji 
 whosi 
 iitera 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In the Scottish Review, jtul dished <it 
 ^Paide\i^ London and Nao Yorl:, <(iid in 
 [the Arena, puhliahed at Boston^ Mass., 
 lere appeared at intervals^ dnruuf the lad 
 iw years, several papers of mine on Antfrt- 
 zan poets and tneir art. At the re<{nest of 
 .8v)ne friends, I Jiavc made a selection of 
 Mh^se Essays from Bevieirs. Tlie sketches in 
 %his little ntbnne, dealing in a general "v///, 
 Avdh tJie I ires and careers of Longfellow, 
 liOWELL, Holmes and Whittiek, are in- 
 
 tnded <ts introductions to the writings of 
 ,e (freat New England qnartette of siiajers, 
 whose vyrrk }(as done so inuch to make 
 Uteratnre in America., v'hat it is to-day. 
 
6 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 / shall he cenj (jlad if these notes prom 
 helpf)d to the student. My object irill he 
 realized, if they have the effect of seyuling 
 to the loorks herein described, many new 
 readers and friends. 
 
 Quebec, October, 1892. 
 
 1. 1 
 
 2. .1 
 8. r 
 4. J 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LOyr;FELLO\V. 
 
 2. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, . ... 69 
 
 3. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, . . . .109 
 
 4. JOirX (iREENLEAF WTTTTTTER, . .. . 139 
 
1 
 
 It 
 
 til 
 
 E. 
 
 E( 
 
 (Ic 
 
<f 
 
 
 LIFE AND TIMES OF LONGFELLOW.' 
 
 {I'/ir Sr of fish Rtrictr, Jnly, ISSfJ.) 
 
 -§- 
 
 J/is hrarf n'as pura^ his p>/rpos': /tit/h^ 
 Jli^ f/ioihjhf sereue, hl^ paficnri: rasf ,• 
 
 1I< put all s/rijls of paxsioH hij, 
 
 And If red to Ood,fromfM (o Icisf. 
 
 William Wintkr. 
 
 1 X these pleasant volumes wc have the sim- 
 ple ami uneventful story of a poet's life. 
 ^^ is chielly autobiographical in form, and 
 the editor has been careful to follow the lines 
 NNluch Mr. Trevelyan lai.l down with eon- 
 •spicuous success in his l)iograpl)y of Macaii- 
 
 * Life of Ihnry Wadmorth Lon<ft'dlo>r ; with 
 Exfraclsfroni his dournah and Corrcy.ondence 
 Tvhted by Samuel Longfellow. 2 Vols. Lon- 
 don, ami Hostun, Massachusetts. 
 
10 
 
 LO>'(i FELLOW. 
 
 lay. Wliei*e\'er possi))le, tlic suV)jcct is al- 
 lowed to tell his own story, and tlie narrative 
 is enriched with copious extracts from jour- 
 nals and letters. The editor may safely ])e 
 congratulated on the thoroughness witli which 
 he has pci formed liis task. If there be fault 
 to find, it must Ijo on tlie score of excessive- 
 ness in the employment of material, man}'- 
 trivial things being included Avhicli might 
 with advantage have l)een omitted. Tlie book 
 is really a most wholesome contribution to our 
 literature. It is interesting, gossipy, and in- 
 structive, and tells all that one may wish to 
 know about a sweet and lova])le character, 
 and genuine man of letters. That such a 
 life, passed in the stu<ly and among books 
 and manuscripts, may have been uneventful, 
 can readily be granted. The editor under- 
 takes to say no more, ]jut quiet and undis- 
 turbed as the poet's life was, this account of 
 his career is full of interest to the reader of 
 literary history, while the letters and jour- 
 nals are rich in incidents of a purely intel 
 
LON(i FELLOW. 
 
 11 
 
 t is Lll- 
 Lvrativc 
 n joiir- 
 iely be 
 h which 
 be fault 
 cessive- 
 [, many 
 I might 
 'he book 
 )n to our 
 and iu- 
 \\ish to 
 laracter, 
 such a 
 cf books 
 eiitful, 
 uuder- 
 1 undis- 
 count of 
 add* of 
 id joui'- 
 ly Intel 
 
 !V 
 
 lectual kiixl. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 
 more nearly than any of his contemporaries, 
 fultils Emerson's definition of a true poet. 
 He was a lieart in unison with his time and 
 his country. He was less distinctively Amer- 
 ican in his poetry, perhaps, than either 
 liryant oi* Whittici'. His choice of su])jects 
 A\ as confined to no particular hxtitude, and 
 thougli hi.s work is often full of local colour, 
 much that he wrote was European in texture 
 and in inci<lent. He was a profound lover of 
 nature, but Bryant was often superior to him 
 in the treatment of forest, and plant, and 
 bird life. In poetry of the afi'ections, Long- 
 fellow undoubtedly took the higher place 
 among his American contemporaries. Here 
 he was always super))ly strong and sympa- 
 thetic, and his love lyrics are quite among 
 the bi'ightest of his shorter pieces. They 
 reveal a nice delicacy of touch, and are sug- 
 gestive of purity and sweetness only, the 
 methods of the fleshly school of singers being 
 utterly uncongenial to his nature. 
 
12 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 He was born in Portland, Maine, on the 
 27 til February, 1807, and came from Puritan 
 ancestry. The home of his childhood, noted 
 as h a.ving been the first brick house in his 
 native city, had been built by his mother's 
 father, (ieneral Peleg Wadsworth, in the 
 years 1784-86. ' Now quite in the heart of 
 the business quarter, it was then on the ex- 
 treme outskirts of the town, in the midst of 
 fields. Hither Zilpah Wadsworth, the boy's 
 mother, had come when seven years old ; 
 here she was married ; liere she returned 
 now with her husband and two boys, in 1808, 
 to pass the rest of her life. She was the 
 third of eleven children of Peleg Wadsworth 
 and Elizabeth Bartlett, who had, after their 
 marriage, removed to Portland from Duxljury 
 in Massachusetts, whither their ancestoi-s 
 had emigrated from England.' Stephen Long- 
 fellow, the poet's father, was a college bre*! 
 man, one of Harvard's sons, the classmate 
 of Dr. Channing, Judges Story and White, 
 and a barrister of high repute and spotless 
 
LON( {FELLOW. 
 
 10 
 
 integrity. At an early age he took a strong 
 ])()sition in his profession, and in 1814, as a 
 ' federalist ' in politics, he was sent to the 
 Massachusetts legislature. He was also the 
 ro))resentative of liis State for one term in 
 the National Congress. Tliough Stephen 
 Longfellow was not a man of letters, he had 
 a passion for literature and music, and his 
 first care was to provide Ijooks of tlie better 
 class for the use of his family. Young Long- 
 fellow may be said to have been born in a 
 library, of which the English classics, the 
 poets and essayists of the time, Don Quixote, 
 tiie Arabian Nights, and Ossian formed no 
 inconsiderable part. The future poet was 
 deeply impressed with the Scottish bard> 
 and, we are told, he used to go about the 
 iiouse reciting favorite passages and often 
 wh<de poems from the minstrel. But of all 
 the books whicli he was able to read in his 
 very young days, no work appealed to him 
 with greater intensity than tlie Sketch Booh 
 of Washington Irving, which at once awak- 
 
14 
 
 lon({fi:lt/)\v. 
 
 cned literary aspirations in his mind. It was 
 of the Skcti'h Book that he \\ rote * Every 
 reader has his first book — I mean to say, one 
 book among all otliers which in early youth 
 first fascinates his imagination, and at once 
 excites and satisfies the desires of his mind. 
 To me, this first book was the Sketch Book 
 of Washington Irving. I was a school-boy 
 when it was published and read each suc- 
 ceeding number with ever inci"easing won- 
 der and delight, spell-])Ound by its pleasant 
 humour, its melancholy tenderness, its at- 
 mosphere of reverie — nay, even l)y its grey- 
 ]>rown covers, the shaded letters of its titles, 
 und the fair clear type wliich seeme<l an out- 
 ward symbol of its style. How many de- 
 lightful books tlie same author has given 
 
 us Yet still the charm of the Sketch 
 
 Vtook remains unbroken ; the old fascination 
 remains about it ; and whenever I open its 
 pages, I open also that mysterious door w'hicli 
 leads back into the haunted chambers of 
 youth.' The poet's school-days began when 
 
 i 
 
'""'k 
 
 lon(;kkli/)W 
 
 15 
 
 I 
 
 lie >\iis Imt tlirt'C years of age, and lie was 
 not more than six when he entered the Port- 
 land Academy, ' a handsome boy, retiring 
 \\ ithout being reserved. There was a frank- 
 ness about him that won you at onee. He 
 looked you S([uare in the face. His eyes 
 were full of expression, and it seemed as 
 tiiougli you could look down into them as 
 into a clear spring.' His first letter was 
 written to his father in 1S14, and it is pub- 
 lislied in this fiife, as the beginning of the 
 .series which continued for many years to 
 pass between ])arent and son. The boy 
 \\rites : 
 
 'Dear Papa, — Aim wants a little Bible like 
 
 little Betsey's. Will you please bliy her one, 
 
 if you can find any in Boston, I have been to 
 
 school all the week, and got only seven marks. 
 
 T shall have a billet on ^londav. I u'ish von 
 
 to buy me a drum. 
 
 ITenuy W. Lonofeli.ow.' 
 
 At seliool he got on well. He was a fa- 
 vourite with his class-mates, and though he 
 had no love for rude sports, he delighted in 
 
10 
 
 LON( J FELLOW. 
 
 bathing in a little creek on the border of 
 Decring's Oaks, and, says Elijah Kellogg, 
 * he would tramp through the woods at times 
 with a gun ; but this was mostly through 
 the influence of others ; he loved much better 
 to lie under a tree and read.' This is what 
 Longfellow thouglit of his master : 
 
 ' I remember the school -master at the Aca- 
 demy, and the mingled odour that hovered 
 about him of tobacco, india-rubber, and lead 
 pencil. A nervous, excita))le man. When 
 we left school I went with a school-mate to 
 take leave of him, and thank him for his 
 patience with us. He thought we were in jest; 
 and ft'ave me a stern lecture on good ])eh'iviour 
 and the trials of a teacher's life.' 
 
 His vacations were spent in long journey- 
 ings about the neighbouring towns and 
 villages. On one occasion, while engaged in 
 a trip of this sort, he learned the story of 
 the Indian fight at Lovell's Pond. The 
 episode emphasized itself into his mind, and 
 lie wrote a poem on the subject. He was 
 thirteen years of age, and from this effort is 
 
 Wa.- 
 
 I 
 
 ,ja 
 
lon<;fkll<)\v. 
 
 17 
 
 i dated the beginning of his literary career. 
 The liiittle of Lo veil's Pond was sent, witli 
 fear and trembling, to the Porthiml Lff'-rar}/ 
 (,'((-.' ff(, which promptly accepted it, and 
 published it in its issue of November 17, 
 I8i?0, in the Poet's Corner. The four stanzas 
 give no promise of the poet's future, though 
 tlie sentitnent may be ai)plauded. His sister 
 Was the only sharer of his confidences, and 
 ihe was as much excited as he was over the 
 fate of tlie bantling. Says the editor : 
 
 r ' We may imaocine the impatience with which 
 they watclied the unfolding of the damp sheet 
 in their father's methodical hands, and the 
 rising vapour as he held it before the wood 
 fire to dry. Slowly he read the paper, and 
 iiaid nothing — perhaps saw nothing — of the 
 terses, and the children kept their secret. 
 But when tliey could get the paper— the poem 
 "Was there ! Inexpressible was the boy's delight, 
 and iiuiumerablo the times that he read and 
 re-read his performance, each time with in- 
 4^reasing satisfaction. In the evening he went 
 |o visit at the house of Judge Mellen, his 
 jftther's friend, whose son, Frederick, was his 
 
18 
 
 LONCFKM.OW. 
 
 uwii inliuiiiU'. In the (.'irclc ;;;illKTtMl ;il»()ul 
 the fire, the talk turned upon poetry. Tho 
 judge took ui) the morning's (idzrilo. '"'• Did 
 you see the piece in to-day's paper? \'ery still', 
 remarkably stiff; moreover, it is all borrowed, 
 every word of it.'' The l)ov's heart sank 
 within him, and he would gladly have sunk 
 through the lloor. lie got out of the house as 
 soon as possible, A\ithout betraying himseil. 
 Shall we blame him that there were tears on 
 his pillow that night? It was his lirst en- 
 counter with "the critic,'' from whom he was 
 destined to hear much, not always c()mi)li- 
 mentary, and of whom he had more than oner 
 something not very complimentary to say.' 
 
 Mrs. James T. Fields tells this story in a 
 slightly dilferent way in a recent number of 
 the Cttitnrti J/ayar./yie (April 1880). Shesayo 
 the conceited old judge called on his son to 
 bring forward his statelier lines on the same 
 :subject. 
 
 In 1821 Longfellow went to Bovvdoin Col- 
 lege, and found himself a mennl)er of the class 
 which included Nathaniel Hawthorne, Abbot, 
 .and one or two others, who in after life 
 
">« 
 
 LOXdFKLLOW. 
 
 19 
 
 aliDiit 
 ,-. Tlu' 
 '' Did 
 iry still, 
 rrowe<l. 
 •t Siink 
 'C sunk 
 loiise as 
 hinist'lt. 
 tears on 
 lirst (.'11- 
 L lie was 
 
 compli- 
 laii once 
 
 sav.' 
 
 )ry in a 
 luber of 
 >he sayo 
 s son to 
 he same 
 
 oin Col- 
 :he clatis 
 , Abbot, 
 'ter life 
 
 |)C( anK- famous. He was ever . , hard student 
 fn<l careful (jbserver. He read mucli, and 
 fonstantly .sent home to his parents brief 
 Ci'iticisms on \\ hat he had read. Tiioinas 
 Gray lie aduiired greatly, and his letters to 
 his mother on the ' Klegy * and other poems 
 which caught his fancy, arc full of interest 
 ftlid decided charm. Ills letters to his fath'U', 
 ioo, show how keenly alert his literary aspi- 
 rations and sympathies were. His parents 
 encouraged his tastes, and he made excellent 
 progress, graduating fourth in a class of 
 thirty -eight. He Mrote a good many verses 
 while at college, and most of these appeared 
 4 1824 and 1825 in the U. S. IJferarji 
 &a\(f/>^ edited by Theophilus Parsons. In 
 iKe fifteenth number of this serial ap])eare<l 
 ♦Thanksgiving,' by H. \V. L., and it was 
 followed in succeeding numbers by sixteen 
 others. In Novembei-, 18*24, the editor wrote 
 i|> Longfellow : 
 
 J 'Sir, — Messrs. Cumniings, Hilliard k Co., 
 la\'e handed me some verses sent Itv vou to 
 
■^ 
 
 20 
 
 LONCi FELLOW, 
 
 them for the Editor of the U. S. Literarjf 
 (hizeiie. In reply lo the cinestioii attached to 
 them, I can only say that almost all the poetry 
 we print is sent ns (jralis^ and that we have 
 no general rule or measure of repayment. 
 But the beauty of your poetry makes me wish 
 to obtain your regular aid . . . Would 
 you ,be kind enough to let me know what 
 mode or amount of compensation you desire. 
 For the ])rose we pnljlish we pay one dollar a 
 column.' 
 
 Of the poems published in this periodical, 
 live were afterwards deemed worthy of being 
 included in the poet's first volume, the 
 * Voices of the Night.' In a letter written 
 to his father, dated March 13, 1824, we have 
 tlie first indication of Longfellow's anxiety 
 regarding his future calling. He writes : 
 
 ' And now, as somehow or other, the subject 
 has been introduced, I am curious to know 
 what you do intend to make of one— whether I 
 am to study a profession or not, and, if so, 
 Avhat profession. I hope your ideas upon this 
 subject will agree with mine, for I have a 
 particular and strong prejudice for one course 
 of life, to which you, 1 fear, will not agree. 
 
 '■K.r(-^ 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 21 
 
 S'. Literarif 
 ttachod to 
 the poetry 
 t we have 
 epayment. 
 s me wish 
 . Would 
 now what 
 on desire, 
 e dollar a 
 
 >eriodical, 
 y of being 
 ime, the 
 r written 
 , we have 
 s anxiety 
 ■rites : 
 
 le subject 
 to know 
 whether I 
 id, if so, 
 upon this 
 1 have a 
 Qe course 
 ot agree. 
 
 It will not be wortli while for nie to mention 
 what this is, until I become more acquainted 
 with vour own wishes.' 
 
 On December 81, he continues the subject 
 in this strain : 
 
 ^I am very desirous to hear your oi)inion of 
 my project of residing a year at Cambridge. 
 Even if it should be found necessary for me to 
 stud}^ a profession, 1 should think a 12 months' 
 residence at Harvard before commencing the 
 study would be exceedingly useful. Of divinity, 
 medicine and law, I should choose the last. 
 Whatever I do studj- ought to be engaged in 
 with all mv soul, for 1 will be eminent in some- 
 thing. The question then is, whether I could 
 engage in the law with all that eagerness 
 which in these times is necessarv to success. 
 I fear that I could not. Ought I not then to 
 choose another path, in which I can go on 
 with better hopes ? Let me reside one year at 
 Cambridge; let me study helles-lettres ; and 
 after that time it will not reciuire a spirit of 
 prophecy to predict v ith some degree of cer- 
 tainty Avhat kind of a figure I could make in 
 the literary world." 
 
 His father, naturally enough, designed him 
 for the law, but a circunrbtance occurred 
 
22 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 which changed the young man's future. He 
 was gi-taduated with honours in 1825. Through 
 tlie liberality of Madam Bowdoin, after 
 whose husband tlie college liad been named, 
 a chair of modern languages was founded, and. 
 tlie youthful poet wag offered the professor- 
 ship. Before accepting, he determined to 
 tit himself for the position by undertaking a 
 visit to Europe. He left America in 182G, and 
 tliough it had been his intention to remain 
 away oidy a twelveinontli, he spent very 
 nearly three ye.irs and a half in France, 
 Spain, Italy, H(jlland, and Germany, and 
 the British Isles. He ac<piired languages 
 readily, and it was not long before he had 
 attained sufficient mastery of German, Ital- 
 ian, French, Spanish and Portuguese, to en- 
 able him to give instruction in those tongues. 
 He made the journey on foot through Fiance. 
 To his brother Steplien he writes from Paris 
 in October : 
 
 ' I began the pedestrian part of my journey 
 on one of those dull, melancholy days, which 
 
lon(;b'ello\v. 
 
 
 yon will innl uttering a mournful voice iit 
 Sewall's Almanack : '' p]xpect-mucli-rain- 
 about- this- time ! "■ **Very miscellaneou3 
 weather, good for sundry purposes," hut not 
 for a journey on foot, thought I. But I had rt 
 merry heart, and it went merrily all day. At 
 sundown I found myself al)Out seven leagues 
 on my wny, and on'3 l^eyond Heaugency. I 
 found the route one continued vineyard. On 
 each side of the road, as far as the eye could 
 reach, there was nothing hut vines, save hero 
 and there a glimpse of the Loire, the turrets 
 of an old chateau, or spire of a village church. 
 The clouds had passed away with the morn- 
 ing, and I had made a hue day's journey, 
 cutting across the country, traversing vine- 
 yards, and living in all the luxury of thought 
 which the occasion inspired. I recollect that 
 at sunset I had entered a path which wound 
 through a wide vineyard, where the villagers 
 were still at their labours, and I was loitering 
 along, talking with the peasantry and search- 
 ing for an auberrje to pass the night in. I was 
 presently overtaken by a band of villagers ; I 
 wished them a good evening, and finding that 
 the girls of the party were going to a village 
 at a short distance, I joined myself to the 
 band. I wanted to get into one of the cot- 
 tages, if possible, In order to study character. 
 
24 
 
 LONiiFELLOW. 
 
 r had a llute in my knapsackj and 1 tbouglit it 
 "would be very pretty to touch u\) at a cottage 
 door, Goldsiuith-lilve, though I wouhl not 
 liiive done it for the world witliout an invita- 
 tion. Well, before long, I determined to get 
 an invitation, if possil)le. Ho I addressed the 
 girl who was walking beside nie, told her I 
 had a flute in my sack, and asked her if she 
 would bke to dance. Now laugii long and 
 loud ! What do you suppose her answer was ? 
 She said she liked to dance, but slie did not 
 know what a flute was! What havoc that 
 made among my romantic ideas ! My (jnirius 
 was made : I said no more about a Hute the 
 whole journey througli ; and I thought noth- 
 ing ))ut starvation wonld drive me to strike 
 up at the entrance of a village, as (loldsniith 
 did.' 
 
 All of his letters from Kurope to his friends 
 are charming. They are rich in description 
 and in incident, and many things come upon 
 him like a revelation. From France he went 
 to the north of Spain. At Aladiid he met 
 Washington Irving, and, as we may imagine, 
 the meeting was a delightful one for him. 
 The Basque girls he found very handsome, 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 25 
 
 and the picturesque and striking scenery of 
 Spain gave him rare pleasure. Andalusia, 
 Cordova, Seville, in turn alforded his sus- 
 ceptible nature the keenest of delights. In 
 1 828 he went to Italy, the next year to Ger- 
 many, and from them both he sent breezy, 
 fresh and characteristic letters. He was only 
 twenty-two when his travels came to an end, 
 but he had learned much, and when he ar- 
 rived home in 1829, he felt refreshed, and 
 ready for his work. Very soon after his ap- 
 pointment, he took up his residence in Bruns- 
 wick, Maine. ' He occupied,' says his broth- 
 er, * rooms in one of the college halls, taking 
 his meals in a private family. He at once 
 devoted himself zealously to his duties of 
 teaching. Finding no French Grammar which 
 suited him, he translated and printed for the 
 use of his pupils the grammar of L'Homond, 
 which had the merit always in his eyes of 
 containing all the essentials in a small com- 
 pass. He had always disliked large books. 
 
 In the same year he edited for his classes a 
 2 
 
26 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 collection of French Proverbes DramatiqueSf 
 and a small Spanish reader, Novelas Espano- 
 laiiy taken from the Tareas de un Solitario of 
 Jorge W. Montgomery — a copy of which had 
 been given him by Mr. Everett in Madrid.' 
 He held the chair five and a half years, when 
 George Ticknor, who had been favourably 
 drawn towards him by his contributions to 
 the North American Review y which dealt 
 largely with the romance literature, offered 
 him the professorship of Modern Languages, 
 in Harvard University, which carried a 
 salary of $1,500 a year. In the meantime, 
 in September, 1831, he had espoused the 
 hand of Mary Storer Potter, the second 
 daughter of Judge Potter, of Portland. * Her 
 character and person were ::«iike lovely.' 
 They were tenderly devoted to each other, 
 and very soon after their marriage they 
 began house-keeping at Brunswick, in a house 
 which still stands under its elms in Federal 
 Street. Of his study he writes in his diary : 
 
 * June 23. \ can almost fancy myself in 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 27 
 
 Spain, the morning is so soft and beautiful. 
 The tesselated shadow of the honeysuckle lies 
 motionless upon my study floor, as if it were a 
 figure in the carpet, and through the window 
 comes the fragrance of the wild brier and the 
 mock orange. The birds are carolling in the 
 trees, and their shadows flit across the window 
 as they dart to and fro in the sunshine ; while 
 the murmur of the bee, the cooing of doves 
 from the eaves, and the whirring of a little 
 humming-bird that has its nest in the honey 
 suckle, scHd up a sound of joy to meet the 
 
 rising sun, 
 
 Before leaving home Longfellow had pub- 
 lished Outre-mery which found great accep- 
 tance with the public. In 1835, Prof. Tick- 
 nor resigned his chair at Harvard, and to fit 
 himself for his enlarged sphere of action, the 
 poet accompanied by his wife, undertook a 
 second journey abroad, leaving America in 
 April, and visiting in turn, England, Scan- 
 dinavia, Germany and the Swiss cantons. 
 He spent three weeks in London, breakfasted 
 with Sir John Bowring, dined with the Lock- 
 harts, and met among others, Jane Porter, 
 
28 
 
 LOX( {FELLOW. 
 
 Mr. Babbage, Lady Morgan, Hay ward, the 
 translator of Faust, Mrs. Blackwood, Lady 
 Seymour, and Lady Dudley Stuart, daughter 
 of Lucien Bonaparte. At the house of the 
 latter, he heard Rubini and Grisi sing. Emer- 
 son had given him a letter to Carlyle, and 
 writes Mrs. Longfellow : — 
 
 ' Mr. Carlyle of Craigcnputtoch was soon 
 after announced, and passed a half-hour with 
 us, much to our delight. He has very unpol- 
 ished manners and a broad Scottish accent, 
 but such fiae language and beautiful thoughts 
 that it is truly delightful to listen to him. He 
 invited us to take tea with them at Chelsea, 
 where they now reside. We were as much 
 charmed with Mrs. C. as with her husband. 
 She is a lovely woman, with very simple and 
 pleasing manners ; she is also very talented 
 and accomplished, and how delightful it is to 
 see such modesty combined with such power 
 to please.' 
 
 At Rotterdam, Longfellow's wife fell ill, 
 in November, and after suffering a few days 
 she died. The poet felt the first real pang 
 of sorrow which he had ever experienced. 
 
U)NCiFP:LL(AV. 
 
 29 
 
 and shortly afterwards he wrote to his father, 
 * every day makes me more conscious of the 
 loss I have suffered in Mary's death ; and 
 wlien I tliink how gentle and affectionate 
 and good she was, every moment of her life, 
 even to tiie last, and that she will be no 
 more with me in this world,— the sense of 
 my bereavement is deep and unutterable. 
 
 But he had work to do, and though his 
 heart was sore, he did not falter, or give 
 way to despair. From Rotterdam he went 
 to Heidelberg, where he formed the acquaint- 
 ance of Bryant and his family, and spent 
 the winter and spring of 1836. Towards the 
 end of June he journeyed to the Tyrol and 
 Switzerland. In the latter country he met 
 Miss Appleton, then in her nineteenth year, 
 the lady who a few years later, became his 
 second wife. In December, 1836, Mr. Long- 
 fellow assumed the duties of his chair at 
 Harvard. The staff of the college was es- 
 pecially strong in distinguished men at that 
 time : Josiah Quincy was president, and with 
 
30 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 liim were associated Henry Ware, senior, 
 John G. Palfrey, Joseph Story, Simon Green- 
 leaf, Charles Sumner, Charles Beck, andC. C. 
 Felton. Jared Sparks, the historian, Francis 
 Bowen, Benjamin Pierce, Prof. Hedge, An- 
 drews, Norton and Washington AUston, 
 poet and artist, lived in Cambridge then. 
 Later came Hawthorne as a visitor and 
 fi'iend, and Lowell and the others followed. 
 The North American Beview was in the zenith 
 of its fame, and most of these writers were 
 among its more brilliant contributors. They 
 formed a coterie, reviewed each other's books, 
 and earned the sharp criticism of Poe, whose 
 bitter attacks on Longfellow and ids friends 
 are remembered yet. The society of Cam- 
 bridge was very delightful, and the story of 
 the poet's life, passed amid such agreeable sur- 
 roundings, is told in letters and extracts 
 from his daily journal. His duties as Pro- 
 fessor, after a time, grew irksome, and there 
 is frequent mention in his diary of the trials 
 he underwent. Still, he held his post for 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 31 
 
 eighteen years, and it was not until 1854 
 that he retired, and made room for Mr. 
 Lowell, though as early as 1850 he wrote : 
 
 * I seriously think of resigning my professor- 
 ship. My time is so fully taken up that I 
 have none left for writing. Then my eyes 
 are suffering, and the years are precious. 
 And if I wish to do anything in literature, 
 it must be done now.' Few men, he says 
 later on, have written good poetry after fifty. 
 But the poet himself exposed the fallacy of 
 this conclusion, for he was past that age 
 when he produced 'Miles Standish,' * The 
 Saga of King Olaf,' ' The Tales of a Wayside 
 Inn,' * The Translation of Dante,' ' Hanging, 
 of the Crane,' and 'Keramos.' In June, 
 1853, we find more complaints about the 
 arduous character of his work, ' Six hours 
 in the lecture-room like a School-master. ' 
 
 * I must retire,' he says again ; but he did 
 not retire yet, and on April 19th, he wrote, 
 
 * at 11 o'clock in number 6 University Hall, 
 I delivered my last lecture— the last I shall 
 
32 
 
 LONU FELLOW. 
 
 ever deliver here or elsewliere.' Six months 
 afterwards, he received a letter fiom the Pre- 
 sident accepting his resignation, and the poet 
 was at last free from his drudgery. 
 
 In 1830, he published his romance, Hyper- 
 ion, and the poems included in ' Voices of 
 the Night,' and three years later there ap- 
 peared ' Ballads and other Poems,' followed 
 in 1843 by the ' Spanish Student,' a drama 
 cast in the Shakespearian mould, vigorous in 
 conception and individuality, but incapable 
 of representation on the stage. In this year, 
 too, he married Frances Elizabeth Appleton, 
 daughter of Nathan Appleton, of Boston. 
 She was a woman of stately presence and 
 cultivated intellect. Underwood, who met 
 her often, describes her as the * possessor of 
 every grace of mind and person that could 
 eharm the heart of a poet.' She is said to 
 have been the original of ' Mary Ash. burton ' 
 in the story of Ilyj^erioiif and like that young 
 lady she twice withstood a siege to i .er heart 
 before she yielded. Eighteen years of hap- 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 ;J3 
 
 piness Ijlcsscd the union, and five children 
 vere born to them, Imt at the hist, Mis. 
 Longfellow was the victim of a terrible tra- 
 gedy, which well nigh ciushed the heart out 
 of the poet. 'J'he Journal l)reaks of! suddenly 
 at the 8th of July, 1861, and 'the break,' 
 says the Ijiographer, ' marked a break in his 
 very life ; an awful chasm that suddenly, 
 and without the slightest warning, opened 
 at his feet. ' The sad story is thus related ; 
 
 ' On the 9th of July his wife was sitting iu 
 the library with her two little girls engaged 
 in sealing up some small packages of their 
 curls, which she had just cut off. From a 
 match fallen upon the floor her light summer 
 dress caught fire; the shock was too great, 
 and she died the next morning. Three days 
 later her burial took place at Mount Auburn. 
 It was the anniversary of her marriasre-dav, 
 and on her beautiful head, lovely and un- 
 marred in death, some hand had placed a 
 wreath of orange blossoms. Her husband 
 was not there — confined to his chamber by the 
 severe burns which he had himself received. 
 These wounds healed with time ; time could 
 only assuage, never heal, the deeper wounds 
 
34 
 
 LONGFELLOW 
 
 that burned within. He bore his grief in 
 eilence ; only after months had passed could 
 he speak of it, and then only in fewest words. 
 To a visitor who expressed a hope that he 
 might be enabled to "bear his cross" with 
 patience, he replied — ''Bear the cross, yes; 
 but what if one is stretched upon it?" ' 
 
 From that dreadful moment the poet was 
 never quite himself, and five years passed 
 away ere he wrote verses of his own again. 
 Eighteen years afterward, looking over an 
 illustrated book of Western scenery, his 
 attention was arrested by a picture of that 
 mysterious mountain upon whose lonely, 
 lofty breast the snow lies in long furrows 
 that make a rude but wonderfully clear image 
 of a vast cross. * At night, as he looked 
 upon the pictured countenance that hung 
 from his chamber wall, his thoughts framed 
 themselves in the verses that follow. He 
 put them away in his portfolio, where they 
 were found after his death.' These verses, 
 never before published, bear the date July, 
 1879: 
 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 35 
 
 THE CROSS OF SNOW. 
 
 In the long, sleepless watches of the night, 
 A gentle face — the face of one long dead — 
 Looks at me from the wall, where round its 
 head 
 The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. 
 Here in this room she died, and soul more white 
 Never through martyrdom of fire was led 
 To its repose ; nor can in books be read 
 The legend of a life more benedight. 
 There is a mountain in the distant West 
 That, sun- defying, in its deep ravines 
 Displays a cross of snow upon its side : 
 Such is the cross 1 wear upon my breast 
 These eighteen years, through all the chang- 
 ing scenes 
 And seasons, changeless since the day she 
 died. 
 
 The letters and journals are especially rich 
 in reminiscences, hints about the progress of 
 the poet's work, chit-chat about passing 
 events, and pleasant accounts of literary men 
 and women. The editor,* for the liiost part, 
 prints only agreeable ana. Whf re something 
 unpleasant is to be said about any one, the 
 name is withheld in nearly every instance. 
 
7 
 
 3() 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Longfellow's nature was very lovable, and 
 he disliked to give pain. When he said no, 
 he always tried to say it as softly as he could. 
 His brother appreciating this trait in his 
 character, suppresses everything that might, 
 in the slightest way, hurt the feelings of any 
 one living. In the diary we have much con- 
 cerning the poet's books. These notes are 
 delicious always. Of ' Evangeline,' we find 
 this account by the editor. The story has 
 been told before, but we may give it here : 
 
 ^ Mr. Hawthorne came one day to dine at 
 Craigie House, bringing with him his friend, 
 Mr. H. L. Conolly, who had l)een the rector 
 of a church in South Boston. At dinner, 
 Oonolly said that he had been trying in vain 
 to interest Hawthorne to write a story upon 
 iin incident which had been related to him bv 
 a parishioner of his, Mrs. Ilaliburton. It was 
 the story of a young Acadian maiden, who at 
 ■the dispersion of her people by the English 
 • troops had been separated from her betrothed 
 lover ; they sought each other for years in 
 tl»eir exile ; and at last the}- met in a hospital 
 where the lover lay d^ing. Mr. Longfellow 
 v/as touched by the story, especially by the 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 OS 
 
 constancy of its heroine, and said to his frienc?, 
 if yon really do not want this incident for a 
 tale, let me have it for a poem ; and Haw- 
 tliorne consented. Out of this grew Evange- 
 line, whose heroine was at first called Ga- 
 brielle. For the history of the dispersion of 
 the Acadians the poet read such books as 
 were attainable ; Haliburton, for instance, 
 with his quotations from the Abbe RaynaK 
 Had he been writing a history he perhaps 
 would have gone to Nova Scotia to consult 
 unpublished archives. But, as he was writing: 
 a poem, a tale of love and constancy, for 
 which iLc'v was needed only a slight historic- 
 al back gii und, he took the authorities wliicli 
 were at hand. Later investigations and more- 
 recent publications have shown that the de- 
 portation had more justification than had been 
 supposed ; that some, at least of the Acadians, 
 so far from being innocent sufferers, had licen 
 troublesome subjects of Great Britain foment- 
 ing insubordination and giving help to the 
 enemy. But, if Iho expatriation was neces- 
 sary, it was none the ^ess cruel, and involved 
 
 in sufferinoj 
 
 many 
 
 who were innocent of 
 
 wrong.' 
 
 In the journal is tnia entry, ' 7th December, 
 1845. I know not what name to give to — 
 
38 
 
 LONCi FELLOW. 
 
 not my new baby, but my new poem. Shall 
 it be " Gabrielle," or ** Celestine," or *' Evan- 
 geline ?" ' Two years later, on the 15th of 
 October, Longfellow wrote in his diary, 
 * Evangeline published.' He employed the 
 English dactylic hexameter, becausCj as he 
 told Barry Cornwall in his letter accompany- 
 ing a presentation copy of the poem, ' I could 
 not write it as it is in any other ; it would 
 have changed its charact ^ entirely to have 
 put it into a different m. :ve.' Conolly 
 published Hawthorne's review shortly after 
 the work came out, in his newspaper, and 
 the novelist sent a copy to Longfellow, who 
 thus charmingly acknowledged the gift : 
 
 ' I hope Ml'. Conolly does not think I spoilt 
 the tale he told, in any way of narrating it. 
 I received his paper containing your notice of 
 the book, and thank you both for such friend- 
 ly service. Still more do I thauk you for re- 
 signing to me that legend of Acady. This 
 success I owe entirely to you for being willing 
 to forego the pleasure of writing a prose talc 
 which many people would have taken for 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 39 
 
 poetry, that I might write a poem which many 
 people take for prose.' 
 
 He cared very little for the critics, and 
 what they said. He did not resent Poe's 
 attacks until long afterward, and then only 
 slightly and without malice. Once he told 
 William Winter that whenever he encounter- 
 ed anything unpleasant about him in his 
 newspaper, or in articles sent to him marked 
 and scored, he would look at a few lines, and 
 then quietly throw the offensive thing into 
 the fire, and it never troubled him again. 
 Margaret Fuller's criticism, he characterized 
 as a * bilious attack. ' He allowed himself to 
 say no harsher words. 
 
 The bores, the autograph hunters, and the 
 idle people who stole precious hours from 
 him, figure frequently in these volumes. He 
 rarely refused to give his autograph, and 
 sometimes he wrote out whole poems when 
 asked. Letters poured into him by the hun- 
 dred, asking all sorts of favours. From 
 
 he receives a poem and a letter ' demanding 
 
40 
 
 LONGFELX.OW. 
 
 that I shall read and criticise it for him. I 
 will not do any sucli thing, unless Congress 
 pass a special law requiring it of me.' The 
 newspaper correspondents worried him too, 
 and infested every nook and corner of his 
 home, destroying all privacy, and ' proclaim- 
 ing to the world the colour of your gloves 
 and the style of your shoe-tie.' A vendor of 
 essences approached him in tlie twilight of 
 an autumn evening and * offered a great bar- 
 gain ; namely that he would give me a dol- 
 lar's worth of his tssences, and I should 
 write for him a poetical epistle to Jenny 
 Lind asking charity in his behalf. Stupid 
 dolt I It took me some time to make him 
 comprehend the indecency of his behaviour. 
 Truly an ignoble Yankee is a very ignoble 
 thing. ' 
 
 Longfellow was no politician, though he 
 took some interest always in the public 
 affairs of his country. He was friendly to 
 the cause of the Abolitionists, and Whittier 
 pressed him in 1844 to run for Congress as 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 41 
 
 the candidate of the Liberty party. Of 
 course, he refused. The German and Frencli 
 Revolutions, the Mexican war, the anti- 
 slavery crusade, and the Civil War in Amer- 
 ica, excited him very much. He took a warm 
 personal interest in the fortunes of his friend, 
 Charles Sumner. Webster's * abominable 
 speech ' in 1850 provoked the sharp words, 
 * is it possible, is this the Titan who hurled 
 mountains at Hayne years ago.' 'Yet,' he 
 continues, * what has there been in Webster's 
 life to lead us to think that he would take 
 any high moral ground on slavery ? ' Eliot's 
 vote for the Fugitive Slave Bill, he stigma- 
 tizes as * a dark disgrace to the city ' of Bos- 
 ton. The war of 1861 found him sad indeed. 
 To that bloody fray he sent one of his sons, 
 who was wounded, but did not die. He 
 inserts in the journal : — 
 
 ' January 28. — Six States have left the Union, 
 led by South Carolina. President Buchanan 
 is an antediluvian an apres moi le deluge 
 President, who does not care what happens, 
 
42 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 if he gets safely through his term. We owe 
 the present state of things mainly to him. He 
 has sympathized with the disunionistg. It is 
 now too late to put the fire out. We must let 
 it burn. 
 
 February 15. — The dissolution of the Union 
 goes slowly on. Behind it all I hear the low 
 murmur of the slaves, like the chorus in a 
 Greek tragedy, prophesying woe, woe ! 
 
 In this gloomy fashion he goes on, saying 
 now, * at the gateway of the State-house two 
 youths of twenty, with smooth, fair cheeks, 
 stand sentry. Ah, woe, the day. ' And again. 
 * The burden seems too great for me to bear. ' 
 
 Longfellow was genial always. He shrank 
 from publicity and notoriety, and often 
 would not go to places where speeches were 
 to be made, lest he should be called on to 
 speak. The society of sympathetic souls, 
 his intimates, always filled him with hap- 
 piness. The German poets impressed him 
 strongly and coloured his literary tastes. 
 His enthusiasm for Jean Paul, and Goethe, 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 4a 
 
 and Heine, was as unbounded as Carlyle's. 
 The poetry of Spain, and of Italy, too, was 
 his delight. Lope, Calderon and Dante being 
 favourites of his from a very early time- 
 Bishop Tegner, he declared, was the only 
 great poet that Sweden possessed, and his 
 heroic poem of Frithiofs Saga drew from 
 him unqualified praise. Of living English 
 poets, Tennyson and Browning impressed 
 him most, and he read their works, as pub- 
 lished, with zest and pleasure. In these 
 volumes we have many glimpses of literary 
 men and women with whom Longfellow 
 formed friendships, though the editor must 
 have curtailed the list. Ei'j'ant, as we have 
 said, he met at Heidelberg in 1835, but 
 though letters occasionally passed between 
 the two poets, they did not see each other 
 often. Hawthorne was a class-mate, but hia 
 real intimacy with Longfellow did not begin 
 until 1837, when Twice Told Tales was sent 
 to the poet with the author's compliments.. 
 The book was promptly reviewed by Long- 
 
 
44 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 fellow in the North American Review^ and 
 from that time until the romancer's death, 
 the friendship of poet and novelist remained 
 unbroken and leal. Their correspondence is 
 quite among the best things in the book. 
 Many bright letters are published. Haw- 
 thorne seems to have opened his heart to his 
 friend, and whether despondent or happy, 
 he told him all. * As to my literary efforts,' 
 he writes gloomily on one occasion, * I do 
 not think much of them : neither is it worth 
 while to be ashamed of them. They would 
 have been better, I trust, if written under 
 more favourable circumstances. If my writ- 
 ings had made any decided impression, I 
 should probably have been stimulated to 
 greater exertions. But there has been no 
 warmth of approbation, so that I have always 
 written with benumbed fingers. I have an- 
 -other great difficulty in the lack of materials, 
 for I have seen so little of the world that I 
 have nothing but thin air to concoct my 
 stories of ; and it is not easy to give a life- 
 
and 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 45 
 
 like semblance to such shadowy stuff,' But 
 Hawthorne often talked in this strain of his 
 literary performances. He was always in 
 doubt, always fearful of their success, and 
 he never quite understood his own power and 
 genius. Longfellow's friendly notice in the 
 Revieio sent him into ecstasies, and he wrote 
 to the poet : — ' Whether or no, the public 
 will agree with the praise which you bestow- 
 ed on me, there are at least five persons who 
 think you the most sagacious critic on earthy 
 viz., my mother and two sisters, my old 
 maiden aunt, and finally — the sturdiest be- 
 liever of the whole — my own self. If I doubt 
 the sincerity of any of my critics, it shall be 
 those who censure me. Hard would be tlie 
 lot of the poor scribbler if he may not have 
 this privilege. ' The Scarlet Letter ^ Longfel- 
 low pronounced *a most tragic tragedy,' 
 The House of Seven Gables ^ he called * a weird 
 wild book, like all he writes, with passages 
 and pages of extremest beauty,' and of the 
 Marble Faun^ published in England by the 
 
40 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 title of Tran-^formatioiiy he wrote, * a won- 
 derful book ; but with the dull pain that 
 runs through all Hawthorne's writings.' 
 
 Longfellow's intimacy with Emerson was 
 thoroughly sweet. There is much al)out the 
 latter in the Journals and Letters. In the 
 entry March 8, 1838, we note these words 
 about the Concord Seer's lecturing on the 
 Affections. ' He mistakes his power some- 
 what, and at times speaks in oracles, darkly. 
 He is vastly more of a poet than a philo- 
 sopher. He has a brilliant mind, and devel- 
 opes, and expands an idea very beautifully, 
 and with abundant similitudes and illustra- 
 tions. Jeremiah Mason said a sharp thing 
 the other day when asked whether he could 
 understand Mr. Emerson. His answer was : 
 ^^ No, I can't ; but my daughters can ! " ' 
 
 Longfellow thought Emerson one of the 
 finest lecturers he had ever heard, * with 
 magnificent passages of true proi?e-poetry. 
 But it is all dreamery after all.' Eight years 
 
 1 
 
LOMiKBLLOW. 
 
 47 
 
 afterwards he went to hear the lecture on 
 CJoetlie, which he tliought very good, but 
 not so pre-eminent as some of his discourses. 
 * There is a great charm a))out liim — the 
 Chrysostom and Sir Thomas Browne of the 
 day.' P^merson took tea with him ten days 
 nfter these words were written, and this is 
 what is recorded in the journal : — ' He was 
 rather shy in his manner, but pleasant and 
 friendly. We all drove down to hear him 
 lecture on Napoleon. Very good and well 
 spoken. We like Emerson — his beautiful 
 voice, deep thought, and mild melody of 
 language.' Of the lecture on Inspiration, 
 Longfellow says, under date January, 1849 : 
 
 ^Another of Emerson's wonderful lectures. 
 The subject *' Inspiration," the lecture itself 
 an illustration of the theme. Emerson is like 
 a beautiful portico in a lovely scene of nature. 
 We stand expectant, waiting for the high 
 priest to come forth, and lo, there comes a 
 gentle wind from the portal, swelling and 
 subsiding, and the blossoms and the vine 
 leaves shake, and far away down the green 
 
48 
 
 L0NC4rELL0W. 
 
 fields the grasses bend and wave, and we ask 
 when will the high priest come forth and re- 
 veal to us the truth ? And the disciples say, 
 '* he is already gone forth, and is yonder in 
 the meadows." *'And the truth he was to 
 reveal?" '* It is nature : nothing more." ' 
 
 Emerson's poems are thus noticed in the 
 diary, December 26, 1846 : 
 
 ' Received from Emerson a copy of his 
 poems. F. read it to me all the evening and 
 until late at night. It gave us the keenest 
 pleasure, for though many of the pieces pre- 
 sent themselves sphinx-like, and ''struggling 
 to get free their hinder parts" they offer a 
 very bold front, and challenge your answer. 
 Throughout the volume, through the golden 
 mist and sublimation of fancy gleam bright 
 veins of purest poetry like rivers running 
 through meadows. Truly a rare volume, with 
 many exquisite poems in it, among which [ 
 should single out ''Monadnoc," *' Threnody," 
 ''The Humble Bee," as containing much of 
 the quintessence of poetry.' 
 
 There are four interesting letters from the 
 philosopher to the poet, all of them in a 
 highly complimentary vein and excessively 
 
LONGFELLOW 
 
 49 
 
 a 
 
 ht 
 
 th 
 [ 
 
 of 
 
 literary in form. * Kavenagh ' pleased Emer- 
 son exceedingly though the temperate con- 
 clusion caused him a little disappointment. 
 Of Hiawatha he writes more fully, saying ; 
 
 *I have always one foremost satisfaction in 
 reading your books — tliat I'm safe. I am in 
 variously skilful hands, but first of all they 
 are safe hands. However, I find this Indian 
 poem very wholesome ; sweet and wholesome 
 as maize ; very proper and pertinent for us to 
 read, and showing a kind of manly sense of 
 duty in the poet to write. The dangers of the 
 Indians are that they are really savage, have 
 poor, small, sterile heads, no thoughts ; and 
 you must deal very roundly with them, and 
 find them in brains. And I blamed your ten- 
 derness now and then as I read in accepting a 
 legend or a song v/hen they had so little to 
 give. I should hold you to your creative func- 
 tions on such occasions. But the costume and 
 machinery on the whole ia sweet and melan- 
 choly, and agree? with the American land- 
 scape. And you have the distinction of open- 
 ing your own road. You may well caU it an 
 Indian Edda. My boy finds it like the story of 
 Thor. I found in the last cantos a pure gleam 
 or two of blue sky, and learned thence to tax 
 the rest of the poem as too abstemious.' 
 
50 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 * Hiawatha ' was severely criticised by the 
 reviewers, some of them dealing with the 
 work in a fierce and furious fashion which 
 reminded the author of the days when ' Hy- 
 perion ' first appeared. But Bancroft, Pres- 
 cott, Bayard Taylor, Hawthorne, Fields, and 
 many other literary men praised it, and 
 their generous words seemed to solace the 
 poet. 
 
 Whittier does not appear in the book often, 
 though he is mentioned in kindly terms 
 whenever referred to. Longfellow's poems 
 on slavery won his heart, and as before 
 stated, he tried to induce him to enter politics 
 on behalf of the cause they both supported. 
 But 'pf^i'tisan warfare,' wrote Longfellow in 
 response to the appeal, * becomes too violent, 
 too vindictive for my taste, and I should be 
 found but a weak and unworthy champion 
 in public debate. ' A pleasant paragraph in 
 the journal on December 4, 1857, says * met 
 Whittier at the publisher's. He grows milder 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 51 
 
 and mellower as does his poetry.' Lowell 
 was Lont^fellow's near neighbour in Cam- 
 bridge, his successor at Harvard, and life- 
 long friend. The references to him, which 
 we find in the diary are scant and tantaliz- 
 ingly brief. When Longfellow was engaged 
 in the final revision of his translation of 
 Dante, Prof. Lowell's services were constantly 
 in requisition. The Dante Club, composed 
 of Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, then Pro- 
 fessor of the History of Art at Harvard, and 
 Mr. Longfellow used to meet once a week at 
 Craigie House. A canto would be read from 
 the proof sheet. * We paused,' says Norton, 
 * over every doubtful passage, discussed the 
 various readings, considered the true mean- 
 ing of obscure words and phrases, sought for 
 the most exact equivalent of Dante's ex- 
 pression, objected, criticised, praised with a 
 freedom that was made perfect by Mr. Long- 
 fellow's absolute sweetness, simplicity and 
 modesty ; and by the entire confidence which 
 existed between us. ' Longfellow performed 
 
52 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 his task — a real labour of love,- with perfect 
 sympathy. While at work, he wrote to a 
 friend, * how different from the gossip is the 
 divine Dante with which I begin the morn- 
 ing. It is the first thing I do — the morning 
 prayer, the keynote of the day.' 
 
 James T. Fields, the poet's publisher and 
 friend, is frequently alluded to, and charm- 
 ing letters appear at intervals. Fields was 
 a delightful man, genial in disposition and 
 as full of tenderness as a woman, generous 
 to a fault in all his dealings with authors, 
 and admirable in eveiy relation of life. 
 When he died in 1881, Longfellow wrote in 
 his memory, ' Auf Wiedersehen ' — till we 
 meet again. We see something of Dr. Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes in these volumes, but the 
 editor might easily have given us more of 
 the gentle * Autocrat. ' Many letters passed 
 between the poets, and books were often ex- 
 changed between them. Of Tennyson too, 
 we find very little. Longfellow spent two 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 53 
 
 days with the Laureate at his home in the 
 Isle of Wight, but of his impressions he says 
 nothing. * Enid ' and ' Guinevere ' he ad- 
 mired greatly, and thought the former 
 superior to the latter. The ' Princess,' he 
 read with satisfaction ; the * Idylls,' he 
 
 * devoured.' 
 
 Longfellow managed to see a good deal of 
 Thackeray when the satirist visited America 
 on his lecturing tour in 1852-3, though he 
 seems to have become more friendly with 
 Dickens, and Clough he * liked exceedingly.' 
 Lowell gave a supper to Thackeray on the 
 5th of January, 1853, the guests invited to 
 meet him being Felton, Clough, Dana, Dr. 
 Parsons, Fields, Edmund Quincy, Estes 
 Howe, and Longfellow, They sat down at 
 ten, and did not leave the table till one. 
 
 * Very gay, with stories and jokes, ' is the 
 comment. 
 
 * Will you take some port ?' said Lowell to 
 
 Thackeray. 
 ' I dare drink anything that becomes a man.' 
 
54 L0NGFELL0V7. 
 
 ' It will be along while before that becomes 
 
 a man.' 
 * Oh no,' cried Felton, ^it is fast turning into 
 
 one? 
 
 The journal continues, * As we were going 
 away, Thackeray said, " We have stayed too 
 long." **I should say," replied the host, 
 ** one long and too short, — a dactylic sup- 
 per. " ' There is much pleasant matter about 
 Dickens, whom the poet found always con- 
 genial. As early as 1842, he described him 
 to his father as *a glorious fellow,' 'a gay, 
 free and easy character ; with a fine bright 
 face, blue eyes, and long dark hair.' This 
 friendship lasted nearly thirty years, and 
 many letters were exchanged. In those 
 printed here, there are some interesting al- 
 lusions to Dickens' American books, the 
 Notes which created such a storm, and Mar- 
 tin Chuzzleivitt. Landor gave Longfellow a 
 dinner, but the latter thought his host *a 
 rather ferocious critic' Thomas Campbell, 
 whom he met at Samuel Rogers', disappoint- 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 55 
 
 ed him, so far as his outward man was con- 
 cerned. * He is small and shrunken, frost- 
 nipped by unkindly age, and wears a foxy 
 wig. But I liked his inward man exceeding- 
 ly. He is simple, frank, cordial, and withal 
 very sociable.' Freiligrath figures often in 
 the Life, and the letters to arid from him are 
 deeply interesting and bright. Jules Janin, 
 Longfellow visited in 1842, at Paris. The 
 famous critic asked him to dine, and he 
 found him dressed in a green coat and light 
 trousers. * At dinner, we had his wife, a 
 pretty woman, and her mother, and a silent 
 lawyer, whose name I did not hear, not being 
 introduced. After dinner we had whist, and 
 I came away after a three hours' visit. Janin 
 is a merry, nonchalant, easy person ; evi- 
 dently having no sympatliies, yet very happy 
 in his own little world. He dislikes the 
 society of literary men ; says he never sees 
 them, and never wants to see them. While 
 we were at dinner an author of dramatic 
 pieces was shown in. Janin received him 
 
56 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 quite cavalierly, did not ask him to take a 
 glass of wine, nor to sit down, which he did 
 withouii being asked.' 
 
 Of course there are many allusions to 
 Charles Sumner, George S. Hilliard, Motley, 
 Sam Ward, George W. Greene, and Prof. 
 Ticknor, and the journals are full of brief 
 references to the men, women and books of 
 Longfellow's time. 
 
 Many of the better known poems have a 
 history, and the editor explains the condi- 
 tions under which some of them were writ- 
 ten. These details are often curious, and 
 seldom uninteresting. Under date March 
 15, 1838, we read, * I always stop on the 
 bridge ; tide waters are beautiful. From the 
 ocean up into the land they go like messen- 
 gers to ask why the tribute has not been 
 paid. The brooks and rivers answer that 
 there has been little harvest of snow and 
 rain this year.' On Oct. 18, same year, we 
 find, * This is a glorious autumn day. The 
 
 ili 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 57 
 
 coat of arms of the dying year hangs on the 
 forest wall — as the hatchment on the walls 
 of a nobleman's house in England, when he 
 dies.' The * Psalm of Life,' which was con- 
 structed on German models, was composed 
 * one bright summer morning hastily, upon 
 the blank portion of a note of invitation.' 
 The poet's heart was full, and he kept the- 
 poem by him for some months, before he 
 gave it to the world. It was a voice from 
 his very soul, and he could not send it out 
 then, for his own heart was bleeding over a 
 private grief. The Psalm produced a marked 
 impression on the popular mind. Sumner ' 
 knew of a class-mate who was saved from 
 suicide by reading it. As late as the time of 
 the Franco-German war. General Meredith 
 Read relates this incident : 
 
 * In the midst of the siege of Paris, a vener- 
 able man presented himself tome, bowed with 
 grief. He said, ''lam Monsieur R., Procu- 
 reur-Geueral of the Cour de Cassation. I 
 have jast learned that my son has been arrest- 
 
58 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 ed by the German authorities at Versailles on 
 an entirely unfounded charge. lie is to be 
 sent to a German fortress, and may be con- 
 demned to death. I am here alone and help- 
 less. I feel that my mind will give way if I 
 cannot find occupation ; can you tell me of 
 some English book which I can translate into 
 French! " I promised to do so and he left 
 me. Within an hour or two, however, I re- 
 ceived a line from him saying that he had 
 found what he required. A few days after- 
 wards he came again to see me ; but now 
 erect, his face bright with hope, his voice 
 clear and strong. He said, '*I have been 
 translating Longfellow's Psalm of Life, and 
 I am a new man ; I feel that my mind is saved, 
 and that faith and hope have taken the place 
 of despair. I owe it all to Longfellow ! " ' 
 
 The * Beleagured City ' was suggested to 
 the poet by a volume of Scott's Border Min- 
 strelsy, which he had found in his friend 
 Ward's library. He opened it at one of the 
 notes recalling the tradition about the city 
 of Prague : * similar to this was the ** Nacht 
 Lager," a midnight camp, which seemed 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 59 
 
 nightly to beleaguer the walla of Prague, 
 but which disappeared on the recital of cer- 
 tain magical words. ' The * Wreck of the 
 Hesperus' was written in 1839 : * News of 
 ship wrecks horrible on the coast. Twenty 
 bodies washed ashore near Gloucester. One 
 lashed to a piece of the wreck. There is a 
 reef called Norman's Woe where many of 
 these took place, among others, the schooner 
 Hesperus. I must write a ballad upon this. ' 
 And he did. As the poet sat musing, and 
 smoking his pipe, about midnight, the wreck 
 of the Hesperus came sailing into his mind. 
 He jotted down some lines, then went to 
 bed, but he could not sleep. He got up and 
 wrote the ringing verses, the clock striking 
 three when his task was done. The * Skele- 
 ton in Armour' appeared in 1849. The vision 
 encountered him as he was riding along the 
 beach at New Port, on a summer's after- 
 noon. A short time before a skeleton had 
 been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken 
 and corroded armour. It made a profound 
 
60 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 impression on the poet, who connected the 
 skeleton with the round tower, usually 
 known to the people living in the vicinity as 
 the old wind mill. These materials formed 
 the theme of his ballad. * Excelsior ' owes 
 its origin to accident. The poet happened 
 to see the word on a torn piece of newspaper,, 
 one autumn night in 1841. It at once fired 
 his imagination, and there sprang up in hia 
 mind 'the picture of a youth scaling the 
 Alpine Pass, bearing in his hand — surely not 
 the broad trailing banner with which the 
 * illustrators ' have furnished him, but rather 
 some slender pennant affixedto his alpenstock, 
 sufficient to bear his chosen motto. This, 
 the poet, made a symbol of the aspiration 
 and sacrifice of a nobly ideal soul, whose 
 words and aim are an unknown tongue 
 to the multitude ; and who, refusing to listen 
 to the cautions of experience or prudence, or 
 to the pleadings of home affections, of wom- 
 an's love, or of formal religion, presses on 
 to a higher goal. That goal he does not per- 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 61 
 
 fectly attain in this life, but in dying still 
 presses on to a higher beyond. The Latinity 
 of the motto was questioned by some of the 
 poet's friends at the time, and afterwards by 
 critics, who thought it should be either ex- 
 celsius or ad excelsiora. He at first thought 
 excelsior justified by good Latin usage, but 
 finding that this was not really the case, he 
 explained it more satisfactorily as part of 
 the phrase * Scopiw mens excelsior est ' — my 
 goal is higher. In truth he was not respon- 
 sible for the borrowed Latin ; and evidently 
 the word excelsior was the word the poem 
 needed, he wrote the lines on a slip of 
 paper, which happened to be the back of a 
 letter received that day from Charles Sum- 
 ner. The *01d Clock on the Stairs,' begun 
 12th November, 1845, was based on the 
 remarkable sermon preached by Jacques 
 Bridaine, the French missionary at St. Sul- 
 pice in Paris, in 1754. Eternity was com- 
 pared to the pendulum of a clock, which 
 ceaselessly murmured * Tovjours, jamais, 
 
i 
 
 62 
 
 LONGFELLOW I 
 
 jamais f toujour s.^ The charming lyric, — 
 quite in Longfellow's best vein, — * The Arrow 
 and the Song,' came to him as he stood with 
 his back to the fire, orie day before church 
 time. Asked to write an ode on the intro- 
 duction of Cochituate water into Boston, he 
 declined, but made the following entry into 
 his journal : 
 
 Cochituate water, it is said, 
 Tho' introduced in pipes of lead, 
 
 Will not prove deleterious ; 
 But if the stream of Helicon 
 Thro' leaden pipes be made to run. 
 
 The effect is very serious. 
 
 The poet's last visit to Europe was made 
 in 1868-9. He visited the lovely English 
 lakes in that sweetest of all months, June, 
 then went to Cambridge as the guest of the 
 master of Gonville and Caius College, and 
 on the 16th he was publicly admitted to the 
 honorary degree of LL.D. Arriving in London 
 on the 26th of June, he was soon the recipient 
 of a flood of hospitality ; calls, cards, in vita- 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 63 
 
 tions, letters of welcome flowed in on him. 
 He breakfasted with Mr. Gladstone, Sir 
 Henry Holland, the Duke of Argyll ; lunched 
 with Lord John Russell at Richmond, dined 
 with various hosts, received midnight calla 
 from Bulwer and Aubrey de Vere. Through 
 Lady Augusta Stanley came an invitation 
 that the Queen would be sorry to have Mr^ 
 Longfellow pass through England without 
 her meeting him, and a day was named for 
 his visit to Windsor. The Queen received 
 him cordially, and without ceremony in one 
 of the galleries of the court. He also called 
 by request, on the Prince of Wales. Many 
 distinguished men entertained him, and his 
 visit became a real ovation. After a brief 
 tour through Europe, he returned to London, 
 then a day at Oxford where he received the 
 degree of D.C.L., followed by a journey 
 througli Devonshire, and then to Edinburgh, 
 the Scottish lakes, and the Burns region, — 
 the whole tour occupying eighteen months* 
 
 After Mr. Longfellow's return home, his 
 
64 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 journals grew briefer, and his letters shrank 
 more and more into notes. The editor gives 
 very few of these after 1870, and the con- 
 cluding pages of the Life treat of men and 
 circumstances in the briefest fashion. Some 
 of the more notable visitors of the poet are 
 named, but little of interest seems to have 
 been connected with their visit, though 
 among the number were Thomas Hughes, 
 Anthony Trollope, Wilkie Collins, Charles 
 Kingsley, Dean Stanley, Lord and Lady 
 Dufferin, Lords Houghton and Ronald Gower, 
 the Duke of Argyll and Salvini. The Em- 
 peror of Brazil, Dom Pedro, dined at Craigie 
 House, and named the guests he wanted to 
 meet. They were Agassiz, Holmes, Emerson, 
 and Lowell. Ole Bull, at the close of 1879, 
 came from Norway, to spend the winter at 
 Mr. Lowell's house, and often delighted 
 Longfellow with his music. Other visitors 
 he had, many of them bores, who robbed 
 him of his precious hours, and plagued him 
 for autographs. 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 65 
 
 In January, 1870, he began a second series 
 of the * Tales of a Wayside Inn. ' In May 
 he prepared a supplement to the Poets and 
 Poetry of Europe^ making for it several new 
 translations of his own. In November, same 
 year, he is writing the * Divine Tragedy,' 
 the long- contemplated, long-postponed first 
 part of the Christus Trilogy. This caused 
 him many doubts and hesitations, but it 
 was published in December, 1871. Imme- 
 diately after this he began the drama * Judas 
 Maccabeus,' a tragic subject, * but it has 
 unity and a catastrophe to end with. ' Twenty 
 years before, he had noted it as a possible 
 subject. In eleven days the work was com- 
 pleted. In the early part of 1872 he was 
 engaged in preparing notes for the * Michael 
 Angelo. ' The drama was finished in its first 
 form in sixteen days, but he kept it by him, 
 as was his habit, for additions and changes, 
 and it was not given to the world until after 
 his death, ten years from the time that he had 
 begun it. * Three Books of Song' and * After- 
 
66 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 math,' appeared in 1872-3. On the 4th of 
 January, he read to Mr. Fields * The Hang- 
 ing of the Crane ' — a delightful picture of 
 simple domestic life. The proprietor of a 
 New York story paper paid him three thou- 
 sand dollars for the right to print it in his 
 journal ; and later, it appeared in a volume 
 illustrated by Mary Hallock (Foote). In the 
 autumn of the next year, the * Masque of 
 Pandora ' followed, containing the important 
 poem of * Morituri Salutamus.' * Keramos,* 
 — a poem on a potter's wheel — was first 
 published in Harper^^s MagarAne, the publish- 
 ers paying one thousand dollars for it, and 
 subsequently it appeared in a volume (1878.) 
 
 The biographer mentions an incident in 
 connection with Longfellow 's poem on Burns, 
 written in 1880, which may amuse the 
 reader. After the lines were published, two 
 letters reached the poet from Scotland, on 
 the same day. One gratefully thanked him 
 for his * wonderful verses, which will touch 
 
LONGFELLOW. 
 
 67 
 
 the heart of every true Scotsman.' The 
 other warned him that his poem was * an 
 effort to hold fellowship and friendly inter- 
 course with one in the place of eternal woe. ' 
 Tlie ground of this extraordinary statement, 
 says Samuel Longfellow, being a rather ques- 
 tionable story that Burns, when on his death- 
 bed, having been urged * to express his trust 
 in Christ,' had replied, ' In a hundred years 
 men will be worshipping me.' * This pro- 
 phecy,' adds the Scottish correspondent, ' is 
 being fulfilled in many quarters. Your poem 
 is an instance of it.' * Ultima Thule,' pub- 
 lished in 1880, was the last volume issued 
 under the poet's eye. Of the verses in this 
 book, writes Mr. Lowell, ' never was your 
 hand firmer.' 
 
 But towards the close of 1881, intimate 
 friends of the poet noticed that he was in 
 failing health, though few thought that the 
 end was near. At Christmas, he was well 
 enough to go to Boston, and the day after 
 
68 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 "he wrote a sonnet addressed to his books, in 
 which he compares himself, as he looked at 
 them on his study walls, to an old knight 
 looking at the arms which he can no longer 
 wield : — 
 
 *So I behold those books upon their shelf,— 
 My ornaments and arms of other days, 
 Not wholly useless, though no longer used ; 
 For they remind me of my other self, 
 Younger and stronger, and the pleasant 
 
 ways 
 In which I walked, now clouded and con- 
 fused.' 
 
 On his 75th birthday he looked cheerful, 
 and appeared to be feeling well. A few 
 days afterwards, on the 18th of March, how- 
 ever, he grew seriously ill, and sufifered 
 severely from peritonitis, the immediate 
 cause of which was a chill. On the 24th 
 inst., he sank quietly in death, closing a 
 beautiful life, which was full of sweetness, 
 flower, and fruit. 
 
 u 
 
 
I 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 {Tfie Arcnat Boatoih Mass., October, 1891.) 
 
 With loving breath of all the winds, his name 
 
 Is blown about the world ; but to his friends- 
 
 A sweeter secret hides behind his fame, 
 
 A nd love steals shyly through the loud acclaim 
 
 To murmur a God bless you ! and there ends. 
 
 WHEN Longfellow had reached his sixtieth 
 year, James Russell Lowell then in hia 
 splendid prime, sent him those lines as a 
 birthday greeting. Lowell, since then, re- 
 ceived in his turn, many similar tributes of 
 affection, but none that seemed to speak so 
 promptly from the heart as those touching 
 words of love to an old friend. To himself 
 they might well have been applied in all 
 truthfulness and sincerity. Of the famous, 
 group of New England singers, that gave 
 
•0 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 strength and reality to American letters, but 
 three names survived until the other day, 
 when, perhaps the greatest of them all passed 
 away. Whittier * and Holmes remain, but 
 Lowell, the younger of the three, and from 
 w^hom so much was still expected, is no more 
 to gladden, to delight, to enrich, and to 
 instruct the age in which he occupied so 
 eminent a place. Bryant was the first to go, 
 and then Longfellow was called. Emerson 
 followed soon after, and now it is Lowell's 
 hand which has dropped forever the pen. 
 At first his illness did not cause much un- 
 easiness, but those near him soon began to 
 observe indications of the great change that 
 was going on. At the last, dissolution was 
 not slow in coming, and death relieved the 
 patient of his sufferings in the early hours of 
 Wednesday, August 12th, 1891. Practically, 
 however, it was conceded that his life-work 
 
 * John Greenleaf Whittier died on Wednes- 
 day, September 7th, 1892, at Hampton Falls, 
 N.H. 
 
 Hi 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 71 
 
 had been completed a few months ago, when 
 his publishers presented the reading world 
 with his writings in ten sumptuous volumes, 
 six containing the prose works, and the other 
 four the poems and satires. He was, with 
 the single exception of Matthew Arnold, the 
 foremost critic of his time. Everything he 
 said was well said. The jewels abounded on 
 all sides. His adroitness, his fancy, his in- 
 sight, his perfect good-humour, and his rare 
 scholarship and delicate art, emphasize them- 
 selves on every page of his books. His polit- 
 ical and literary addresses were models of 
 what those things should be. They were 
 often graceful and epigrammatic, but always 
 sterling in their value and full of thought. 
 Long ago he established his claim to the title 
 of poet, and as the years went by, his muse 
 grew stronger, richer, fresher, and more 
 original. As an English critic, writing 
 pleasantly of him and his work, in the London 
 Spectator y said lately: ** His books are delight- 
 ful reading, with no monotony except a mon- 
 

 I;- 
 
 72 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 otony of brilliance which an occasional lapse 
 into dulness would almost diversify. " 
 
 James Russell Lowell was descended from 
 a notable ancestry. His father was a clergy- 
 man, the pastor of the West Church in 
 Boston. His mother was a woman of fine 
 mind, a great lover of poetry, and mistress 
 of several languages. From her, undoubted- 
 ly, the gifted son inherited his taste for 
 belles-lettres and foreign tongues. He was 
 born at Cambridge, Mass., on the 22nd of 
 February, 1819, and named after his father^s 
 maternal grandfather, Judge James Russell. 
 After spending a few years at the town school, 
 under Mr. William Wells, a famous teacher 
 in his day, he entered Harvard University, 
 and in 1838 was graduated. He wrote the 
 class poem of the year, and took up the study 
 of law. But the latter he soon relinquished 
 for letters. His first book was a small col- 
 lection of verse intituled : ** A Year's Life." 
 It gave indication of what followed. There 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 73 
 
 were traces of real poetry in the volume, and 
 none wlio read it doubted the poet's future 
 success in his courtship of the muse. In 
 1843 he tried magazine publishing, liis partner 
 in the venture being Robert Carter. Three 
 numbers only of The Pioneer^ a LUerary and 
 Critical Maijazitie, were published, and 
 though it contained contril)utions by Haw- 
 thorne, Lowell, Poe, Dwight, Neal, Mrs. 
 Browning, and Parsons, it failed to make its 
 way, and the young editor prudently with- 
 drew it. In the next year he published the 
 *' Legend of Brittany, Miscellaneous Poems 
 and Sonnets. " A marked advance in liis 
 art was immediately noticed. His lyrical 
 strength, his passion, his terse vocabulary, 
 his exquisite fancy and tenderness illumined 
 every page, giving it dignity and colour. 
 The legend reminded the reader of an Old 
 World pDem, and ** Prometheus" too, might 
 have been written abroad. ** Rhoecus " 
 was cast in the Greek mold, and told the 
 story, very beautifully and very artistically, 
 
74 
 
 LOWELL 
 
 of the wood-nymph and the bee. But tliere 
 were other poems in the collection, such as 
 "To Perdita Singing," ** The Heritage,'* 
 and '* The Forlorn," which at once caught 
 the ear of lovers of true melody. A volume 
 of prose essays succeeded this book. It was 
 intitled : ** Conversations on some of the 
 Old Poets," and when Mr. Lowell became 
 Mr. Longfellow's successor in the chair of 
 modern languages and heUes-htfresatlisLVvsiYd, 
 much of this material was used in his lec- 
 tures to the students. But, later on, we will 
 concern ourselves more directly with the 
 author's prose. 
 
 In December, 1844, Mr. Lowell espoused 
 the hand of Miss Maria White, of Water- 
 town. She was a lady of gentle character, 
 and a poet of singular grace. The marriage 
 was a most happy one, and it was to her that 
 many of the love poems of Lowell were 
 inscribed. Once he wrote : — 
 
 *' A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, 
 A lily-bud not opened quite, 
 That hourly grew more pure and white, 
 
LOWEII,. 
 
 75 
 
 By morning, and noou-tMe, and evening 
 
 nursed : 
 In all of Nature thou had'st thy share ; 
 
 Thou wast waited on 
 
 By the wind and sun ; 
 The rain and the dew for thee took care ; 
 It seemed thou never could' st be more fair." 
 
 She died on the 27th of October, 1853, the 
 
 day that a child was born to Mr. Longfellow. 
 
 The latter's touching and perfect poem, 
 
 ** The Two Angels," refers to tliis death and 
 
 birth : — 
 
 '"T was at thy door, friend! and notatminCy 
 The angel witli the amarantlilne wreath, 
 
 Pausing, descended, and with voice divine. 
 Whispered a word that had a sound like 
 death. 
 
 Then fell upon tlie house a sudden gloom, 
 
 A shadow on those features fair and thin ; 
 
 And softly, from that hushed and darkened 
 
 room, 
 Two angels issued, where but one went in. 
 
 All is of God ! If he but wave His hand. 
 The mists collect, the rain falls thick and 
 loud, 
 Till with a smile of light on sea and land, 
 Lo ! He looks back from the departing 
 cloud." 
 
76 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 A privately printed volume of Mrs. Lowell's 
 poems appeared a year or two after her death. 
 Mr. Lowell's second wife was Miss Frances 
 Diinlap, of Portland, Maine, whom he married 
 in September, 1857. She died in February, 
 1885. 
 
 Mr. Lowell was ever pronounced in his 
 hatred of wrong, and naturally enough he was 
 found on the side of Garrison, Wendell 
 Phillips, and Whitticr, in their great battle 
 against that huge bloc on civilization, slavery 
 in America. He spoke and wrote in Ijchalf 
 of the abolitionists at a time when the anti- 
 slavery men were openly despised as heartily 
 in the North as they were feared and detest- 
 ed in the South. He wrote with a pen which 
 never faltered, and satire, irony, and fierce 
 invective accomplished their work with a 
 will, and moved many a heart, almost des- 
 pairing, to renewed energy. 
 
 *' The Vision of Sir Launfal " was publish- 
 -ed in 1848, and it will be read as long as 
 men and women admire tales of chivalry and 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 77 
 
 the stirring stories of King Artliur's court, 
 Tennyson's " Idyls " will keep his fame alive 
 and Lowell's Sir Launfal, which tells of the 
 search for the Holy Grail, the cup from 
 which Christ drank when he partook of the 
 last supper with his disciples, will also have 
 a place among the best of the Artiiuriar; leg- 
 ends. It is said that Mr. Lowell wrote this 
 strong poem in forty-eiglit hours, during 
 which he luirdly slept or ate. Stcdman calls* 
 it "a landscape poem," a term amply justi- 
 fied. It contains many quotable extracts, 
 such as, *' And what is so )'are as a day in 
 June," *•' Down swept tlie chill wind from the 
 mountain peak, from the snow Hve thousand 
 summers old, " and " Kartli gets its price for 
 wliat eartli gives us '* W'c are constantly 
 meeting these in ^lic magazines and in the 
 newspapers. The N'i.sion did much to bring 
 about a larger recognition of the author's 
 ]K)wers as a poet of the tirst order. Ifc had 
 to wait some time to gain this, and in tlint 
 respect he resembled R(>]>crt Browning, at 
 
1 
 
 78 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 first so obscure, at last compelling approval 
 from all. 
 
 The field of American literature, as it ex- 
 isted in 1S48, was surveyed by Lowell in his 
 happiest in inner, as a satirist, in that clever 
 production, Ijy a wonderful Quiz, A Fable 
 for Clitics, " Set forth in Octol)er, tlie 3 1st 
 /lay, in the year '4S, (J. 1\ Putnam, Broad- 
 way. " For some time the authorship remain- 
 ed a secret, thougli tliere were many shrewd 
 ^guesses as to the paternity of the biting 
 shafts of wit and dclicatcl}^ bated hooks. It 
 was written mahdy for the author's own 
 amusement, and ^\ ith no thought of publi- 
 cation. Daily instalments of the poem were 
 sent off, as soon as written, to a friend of the 
 poet, Mr. Charles F. Jhiggs, of New York, 
 who found the lines so irresistibly good, that 
 he begged permission to hand them over to 
 Putnam's for i)u])lication. This, however, 
 Mr. Lowell declined to do, until he found 
 that the repeated urging of his frien<l would 
 not be stayed. Then he consented to *ano- 
 
LOWKLL. 
 
 79 
 
 nymous publication. The secret was kept, 
 until, as the author himself tells us, "several 
 persons laid claim to its authorship." No 
 poem lias been of tener quoted than the Fable. 
 It is full of audacious things. The authors 
 of the day, and their peculiar characteristics 
 (Lowell himself not being spared in the least), 
 are held up to admiring audiences with all 
 their sins and foibles exposed to the public 
 gaze. It was intended to have "a sting in 
 his tale," this *' frail, slender thing, rhymey- 
 wingcH," and it had it decidedly. 8ome of 
 the authors lampooned, took the matter up, 
 in downright sober earnest, and objected to 
 the seat in the pillory which they were forced 
 to occupy unwillingly. But they forgave the 
 satirist, as the days went by, and they real- 
 ized that, after all, the fun was harmles?, 
 nobody was hurt actually, and all were treat- 
 ed alike by the ready knife of the fabler. 
 But what could they say to a man who thus 
 wrote of himself ? — 
 
 *' There is Lowell, who's stiiviug Parnassus 
 to climb 
 
80 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 With a whole bale of isms tied together with 
 
 rhyme, 
 He might get on alone, spite of brambles 
 
 and boulders, 
 But he can't with that bundle he has on liis 
 
 shoulders. 
 The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh 
 
 reaching 
 Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing 
 
 and preaching; 
 His lyre has some chords that would ring 
 
 pretty well. 
 But he'd rather by half moke a drum of the 
 
 shell, 
 
 And rattl 
 
 At the 
 Jer 
 
 away 
 head 
 usalem 
 
 till he's old as Methusalem, 
 of a march to the last new 
 
 Apart from the humorous aspect of the 
 FaVde, there is, certainly, a good deal of 
 sound criticism in the piece. It may be 
 brief, it may be inadequate, it may be blunt, 
 but for all that it is truthful, and eminently 
 just, as far as it goes. Bryant, who was 
 called cold, took umbrage at the portrait 
 drawn of him. i5ut his verse has all the 
 cold glitter of the Greek bards, despite the 
 
I 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 81 
 
 fact tliat lie is America's greatest poet of 
 nature, and some of his songs are both sym- 
 pathetic and sweet, such as the " Lines to a 
 Water-fowl," "The Flood of Years," " The 
 Little People of the Snow," and " Thanatop- 
 sis." 
 
 But now we come to the book which gave 
 ^Ir. Lowell his strongest place in American 
 letters, and revealed his remarkalde powers 
 as a humorist, satirist, and thinker. We 
 have him in this work, at his veiy best. The 
 vein had never been thoroughly worked be- 
 fore. The Yankee of Haliburton appeared 
 ten years earlier than the creations of Lowell. 
 But Sam Slick was a totally difterent person 
 from Hosea liiglow and Birdofredum Sawin. 
 Slick was a very interesting man, and he has 
 his place in fiction. His sayings and doings 
 are still read, and liis wise saws continue to 
 be pondered over. But the Biglow type 
 seems to our mind, more complete, more 
 rounded, more perfect, more true, indeed, 
 to nature. The art is well proportioned all 
 
82 
 
 LOWKLL. 
 
 through, and the author justifies Bungay's 
 assumption, tliat he had attained the rank 
 of Butler, wliose satire heads the list of all 
 such productions. Butler, however, Lowell 
 really surpassed. The movement is swift, 
 and there is an individuality about tlie whole 
 performance, Avhich stamps it undeniably as 
 a masterpiece. The down-east dialect is 
 .managed with consummate skill, the charac- 
 ter-drawing is superlatively fine, and the 
 sentiments uttered, ringing like a bell, carry 
 conviction. The invasion of Mexico was a 
 distasteful thing to many people because it 
 was felt that that war was dishonorable, and 
 undertaken solely for the benefit of tlie 
 slaveholder, who was looking out for new 
 premises, where he might ply his calling, 
 an^. continue the awful trade of bondage, 
 and his dealings in flesh and blood. Mr. 
 Lowell's heart was steeled against that ex- 
 pedition, and the lirst series of his Biglow 
 papers, introduced to the world ])y the 
 Reverend Homer Will)ur, showed how deep- 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 83 
 
 ly earnest he was, ami how terribly rigorous 
 he could be, when the scalpel had to be used. 
 The first knowledge that the reading world 
 had of the curious, ingenuous, and (quaint 
 Hosea, was the coinniunication which his 
 father, Ezekicl J5iglow, sent to the lioston 
 Conritr, covering a poem in tlie Yankee 
 dialect, by the hand of the young down- 
 easter. It at once commanded notice. The 
 idea was so new, the homely truths were so 
 well put, the language in print was so un- 
 usual, and the " hits " were so well aimed, 
 that tlie critics were baflicd. Tlie public 
 took hold innnediately, and it soon spread 
 that a strong and bold pea was helping the 
 reformers in their unpoimlar struggle. The 
 blows were struck relentlessly, but men an<l 
 women laughed througli their indignation. 
 There were some who rebelled at the coarse- 
 ness of the satire, but all recognized tluit the 
 author, whoever he might be, was a scholar, 
 a man of thought, and a genuine philan- 
 thropist, who could not be put down. \'ol 
 
84 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 unteers were wanted, and Boston was asked 
 to raise her quota. But Hosea Biglow, in 
 his charmingly scornful way said : 
 
 *' Thrash away, you'll hev to rattle 
 On them kittle-drums o' yourn, — 
 'Taint a knowin' kind o' cattle 
 Thet is ketched with mouldy corn. 
 
 Put in stiff, 3'ou fifer feller, 
 
 Let folks see how spry you be, — 
 
 Guess you'll toot till you are yaller 
 'Fore you git ahold o' me ! " 
 
 The parson adds a note, sprinkled with 
 Latin and Greek sentences, as is his wont. 
 The letters from the first page to the last, in 
 the collected papers, are amazingly clever. 
 The reverend gentleman who edits the series 
 is a type himself, full of pedantic and peda- 
 gogic learning, anxious always to show off 
 his knowledge of the classics, and solemn and 
 serious ever as a veritable owl. His notes 
 and introduction?^, and scrappy Latin and 
 Greek, are among the most admiralde things 
 in the book. Their humour is delicious, and 
 the mock criticisms and opinions of the press, 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 85 
 
 offered by Wilbur on the work of liis young 
 friend, and his magnificent seriousness, 
 which constantly shows itself, give a zest to 
 the performance, which lingers long on the 
 mind. The third letter contains tlie often- 
 quoted poem, "What Mr. Robinson thinks." 
 
 '' Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man : 
 
 He's ben on all sides that give place or 
 pelf; 
 But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,— 
 He's ben true to one party,— an* thet is 
 himself: — 
 
 So John P. 
 Robinson, he 
 Sez he shaP vote for Gineral C. 
 
 Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life 
 That th' Apostles rigged out in their 
 swaller tail coats, 
 An' marched round in front of a drum an' 
 a fife, 
 To get some on 'em office, an' some on 
 'em votes ; 
 
 But John P. 
 Robinson, he 
 Says they didn't know everything down 
 in Judee." 
 
8G 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 Despite the sometimes harsh criticism 
 which the Biglow papers evoked, Mr. Lowell 
 kept on sending them out at regular inter- 
 vals, knowing that every blow struck was a 
 blow in the cause of riglit, and every attack 
 was an attack on the meannesses of the time. 
 The flexible dialect seemed to add lionesty 
 to the poet's invective. The satire was 
 oftentimes savage enough, but the vehicle by 
 which it was conveyed, carried it off. There 
 was danger that Lowell might exceed his 
 limit, but the excess so nearly reached, never 
 came. The Papers aroused the whole coun- 
 try, said Whitticr, and did as much to free 
 the slave, almost, as (Grant's guns. Li one 
 of the numbers, Mr. Lowell produced, quite 
 by accident, as it were, his celebroied poem 
 of *' The Courtin'." This was in the second 
 series, begun in the Atlantic Monthly ^ of 
 which he was, in 1857, one of the founders, 
 and editor. This series was written during 
 the time of the American Civil War, and 
 the object was to ridicule the revolt of the 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 87 
 
 Southern States, and show up the demon of 
 secession in its true colours. Birdofreduni 
 Sawin, now a secessionist, writes to Hosea 
 Biglow, and the poem is, of course, intro- 
 duced as usual, by the parson. The humour 
 is more grim and saidonic, for tlie war was 
 a stern reality, and Mr. Lowell felt the need 
 of making his work tell with all the force 
 that he could put into it. In response to a 
 request for enough **copy " to fill out a cer- 
 tain editorial page, Lowell wrote rapidly 
 down the verses which became, at a bound, 
 so popular. He added, from time to time, 
 other lines. This is the story of the Yankee 
 courtship of Zekle and Huldy : — 
 
 ** The very room, coz she was in, 
 
 Seemed warm f om floor to ceilin', 
 An' she looked full ez rosy agin 
 Ez the apples she was peelin' . 
 
 He kin' o' I'itered on the mat. 
 Some doubtfle o' the sekle, 
 
 His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, 
 But hern went pity Zekle. 
 
IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 f IM IIM 
 
 ■- IIM |||m 
 If IM III 2.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 
 1.25 1.4 
 
 1.6 
 
 
 ^ 6" — 
 
 
 ► 
 
 % 
 
 *¥ 
 
 
 
 /y 
 
 °^' 
 
 M 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sdences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 4 
 
 4^'^^ 
 
 iS^ 
 
 iP 
 
 ;\ 
 
 \ 
 
 ^1 
 
 ^^ 
 
 6^ 
 
 % 
 
 n? 
 
 > 
 
 ^<i. 
 
 ^7 
 
 23 we ;T MAiN STRCe' 
 
 WEBSTER, NY. MS80 
 
 (716) t72-4503 
 
 5^^ 
 
4»J 
 
 
 
 C/a 
 
 , 
 
88 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 All' yit she giu her chair a jerk 
 As though she wished him furder, 
 
 An' on her apples kep' to work, 
 Pariii' away like murder. 
 
 * You want to see my pa, I s'pose ? ' 
 
 'Wall, — no — I come dasignin' — ' 
 
 * To see my ma? She's sprinkliu' clo's 
 
 Agin to-morrer's i'nin.' 
 
 To say why gals acts so or so. 
 Or don't 'ould be presumin', 
 
 Mebby to mean yes an' say no 
 Comes natural to women. 
 
 He stood a spell on one foot fust, 
 Then stood a spell on t'other, 
 
 An' on which oae he felt the wust 
 He couldn't ha' told ye nuther. 
 
 Says he, Td better call agin ; ' 
 Says she, ' Think likely, mister ; ' 
 
 Thet last word pricked him like a pin, 
 An' — wall, he up an' kist her. 
 
 When ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 
 
 Huldy sot pale ez ashes, 
 All kin' o' smily roun' the lips 
 
 An' teary roun' the lashes. 
 
LOWELL. 89. 
 
 For she was jes' the quiet kind 
 
 Whose naturs never vary, 
 Like streams that keep a summer mind 
 
 Snowhid in Jenooary. 
 
 The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued: 
 
 Too tight for all expressin'. 
 Tell mother see how metters stood, 
 
 An' gin 'em both her blessin'. 
 
 Then her red come back like the tide 
 
 Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
 An' all I know is they was cried 
 
 In meetin' come nex' Sunday." 
 
 During the war, Great Britain sided prin- 
 cipally with the South. This the North re- 
 sented, and the Trent aflfair only added fuel 
 to the flame. It was in one of the Biglow 
 Papers that Mr. Lowell spoke to England, 
 voicing the sentiments and feelings of the 
 Northern people. That poem was called 
 ''Jonathan to John," and it made a great 
 impression on two continents. It was full 
 of the keenest irony, and though bitter, 
 
 there was enough common sense in it ta 
 6 
 
w 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 make men pause, and think. It closes thus 
 patriotically : — 
 
 ^' Shall it be love, or hate, John ? 
 It's you thet's to decide ; 
 Ain't ijoiir bonds held by Fate, John, 
 Like all the world's beside ? ' 
 Ole Uncle S. sez. he, ' I guess 
 Wise men forgive,' sez he, 
 ^ But not forgit ; an' some time yit 
 Thet truth may strike J. B., 
 Ez wal ez you an' me ! ' 
 
 -'- God means to make this land, John, 
 .Clear thru, from sea to sea, 
 Believe an' understand, John, 
 The wuth o' bein' free.' 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, *I guess, 
 God s price is high,' sez he ; 
 * But nothin' else than wut He sells 
 Wears long, an' thet J. B. 
 May larn, like you an' me ! ' " 
 
 The work concludes with notes, a glossary 
 of Yankee terms, and a copious index. The 
 chapter which tells of the death of Parson 
 Wilbur is one of the most exquisite things 
 that Lowell has done in prose. The reader 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 01 
 
 who has followed the fortunes of the Rev- 
 erend Homer, is profoundly touched by the 
 reflection that he will see him no more. He 
 had grown to be a real personage, and long 
 association with him had made him a friend. 
 On this point, Mr. Underwood relates an 
 incident, which is worth quoting here : — 
 
 '* The thought of grief for the deiith of an 
 imaginary person is not quite so absurd as it 
 might appear. One day, while the great 
 novel of ' The Nevvcomes ' was in course of 
 publication, Lowell, who was then in London, 
 met Thackeray on the street. The novelist 
 was serious in manner, and his looks and voice 
 told of weariness and affliction. He saw the 
 kindly inquiry in the poet's eyes, and said, 
 ' Come into Evans's and I'll tell you all about 
 it. I have killed the Colonel.^ " 
 
 ** So they walked in and took a table in a 
 remote corner, and then Thackeray, drawing 
 the fresh sheets of manuscript from his breast 
 pocket, read through that exquisitely touch- 
 ing chapter which records the death of 
 Colonel Newcome. When he came to the 
 final Adsunij the tears which had been 
 
92 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 swelling his lids for some time trickled down 
 upon his face, and the last word was almost 
 an inarticulate sob." 
 
 The volume ** Under the Willows," which 
 contains the poems written at intervals dur- 
 ing ten or a dozen years, includes such well- 
 remembered favourites as *' The First Snow- 
 fall," "For an Autograph," "A Winter Even- 
 ing Hymn to My Fire," ** The Dead House " 
 (wonderfully beautiful it is), " The Darkened 
 Mind," " In the Twilight," and the vigorous 
 '* Villa Franca " so full of moral strength. 
 It appeared in 1869. Mr. Lowell's pen was 
 always busy about this time and earlier. He 
 was a regular contributor to the Atlantic in 
 prose and verse. He was lecturing to his 
 students and helping Longfellow with his 
 matchless translation of Dante, besides hav- 
 ing other irons in the fire. 
 
 It is admitted that the greatest poem of 
 the Civil War was, by all odds, Mr. Lowell's 
 noble Commemoration Ode, In that blood- 
 
 i; 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 03 
 
 red struggle several of his kinsmen were 
 slain, among them Gen. C. R. Lowell, Lieut. 
 J. J. Lowell, and Captain Putnam, all 
 nephews. His ode which was written in 
 1865, and recited July 21, at the Harvard 
 commemoration services, is dedicated ** To 
 the ever sweet and shining memory of the 
 ninety-three sons of Harvard College, who 
 have died for their country in the war of 
 nationality. " It is, in every way, a great 
 effort, and the historic occasion which called 
 it forth will not be forgotten. The audience 
 assembled to listen to it was very large. No 
 hall could hold the company, and so the 
 ringing words were spoken in the open air. 
 Meade, the hero of Gettysburg, stood at one 
 side, and near him were Story, poet and 
 sculptor, fresh from Rome, and General 
 Devens, afterwards judge, and fellows of 
 Lowell's own class at college. The most 
 distinguished people of the Commonwealth 
 lent their presence to the scene. There was 
 a hushed silence while Lowell spoke, and 
 
94 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 when he uttered the last grand words of his 
 ode, every heart was full, and the old 
 wounds bled afresh, for hardly one of that 
 vast throng had escaped the badge of mourn- 
 ing, for a son, or brother, or father, lost in 
 that war. 
 
 " Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found 
 release ! 
 Thy God, in these distempered days, 
 Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His 
 ways, 
 And through thine enemies hath wrought 
 thy peace ! 
 Bow down in prayer and praise ! 
 No poorest in thy borders but may now 
 Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised 
 brow. 
 
 Beautiful 1 My Country ! ours once more ! 
 Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled 
 hair 
 O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, 
 And letting thy set lips, 
 Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, 
 The rosy edges of their smile lay bare. 
 
 What words divine of lover or of poet 
 Could tell our love and make thee know 
 
 It, 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 95 
 
 Among the Nations bright beyond compare 
 
 What were our lives without thee? 
 
 What all our lives to save thee ! 
 
 We reck not what we gave thee ; 
 
 We will not dare to doubt thee, 
 But ask whatever else, and we will dare/' 
 
 ** The Cathedral," dedicated most felicit- 
 ously to the late James T. Fields, the author- 
 publisher, written in 1869, was published 
 early in the following year in the Atlantic 
 Monthly, and immediately won the applause 
 of the more thoughtful reader. It is a poem 
 of great grandeur, suggestive in the highest 
 degree, and rich in description and literary 
 finish. Three memorial odes, one read at 
 the one hundredth anniversary of the £ght 
 at Concord Bridge, one under the old elm, 
 and one for the Fourth of July, 1876, fol- 
 lowed. The Concord ode appears to be the 
 more striking and brilliant of the three, but 
 all are satisfactory specimens, measured by 
 the standard which governs the lyric. 
 
 ** Heartsease and Rue," is the graceful 
 title of Mr. Lowell's last volume of verse* 
 
96 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 A good many of his personal poems are in- 
 cluded in the collection, such as his charming 
 epistle to George William Curtis, the elegant 
 author of " Prue and I," one of the sweetest 
 books ever written, inscribed to Mrs. Henry 
 W. Longfellow, in memory of the happy 
 hours at our castles in Spain ; the magnifi- 
 cent apostrophe to Agassiz ; the birthday 
 offering to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes ; the 
 lines to Whitticr on his seventy-fifth birth- 
 day ; the verses on receiving a copy of Mr. 
 Austin Dobson's *' Old World Idylls," and 
 Fitz Adam's Story, playful, humorous and 
 idyllic. 
 
 In his young days, Mr. Lowell wrote much 
 for the newspapers and serials. To the Dial ^ 
 the organ of tlie Transcendentalists, he con- 
 tributed frequently, and his poems and prose 
 will be found scattered through the pages of 
 The Democratic Review, The North American 
 Review, of which he ultimately became editor, 
 The Massachusetts Quarterly Review, and the 
 Boston Courier. His prose was well received 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 97 
 
 by scholars. It is terse and strong, and 
 whatever position history may assign to him 
 as a poet, there can never be any question 
 about his place among the ablest essayists of 
 his century. "Fireside Travels," the first 
 of the brilliant series of prose works that we 
 have, attract by their singular grace and 
 graciousness. The picture of Cambridge 
 thirty years ago, is full of charming reminis- 
 cences that must be very dear to Cambridge 
 men and women. " The Moosehead Jour- 
 nal, "and "Leaves from the Journal in Italy," 
 happily turned, are rich in local colour. 
 * 'Among My Books," and *' My Study Win- 
 dows," the addresses on literary and political 
 topics, and the really able paper on Demo- 
 cracy, which proved a formidable answer to 
 his critics, fill out the list of Mr. Lowell's 
 prose contributions. The literary essays are 
 especially well done. Keats tinged his 
 poetry when he was quite a young man. He 
 never lost taste of Endymion or the Grecian 
 Urn, and his estimate of the poet, whose 
 
98 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 (( 
 
 U 
 
 name was writ in water," is in excellent 
 form and full of sympathy. Wordsworth, 
 too, he read and re-read with fresh delight, 
 and it is interesting to compare his views of 
 the lake poet with those of Matthew Arnold. 
 The older poets, such as Chaucer, Shakes- 
 peare, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, and Pope 
 in English, and Dante in Italian, find in 
 Mr. Lowell a penetrating and helpful critic. 
 His analyses are made with rare skill and 
 nice discrimination. He is never hasty in 
 giving expression to his opinion, and every 
 view that he gives utterance to, exhibits the 
 process by which it reached its development. 
 The thought grows under his hand, appar- 
 ently. The paper on Pope, with whose 
 writings he was familiar at an early age, ^r a. 
 most valuable one, being especially rich in 
 allusion and in quality. He finds something 
 new to say about the bard of Avon, and says 
 it in a way which emphasizes its originality. 
 Indeed, every essay is a strong presentation 
 of what Lowell had in his mind at the time. 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 99 
 
 He is not content to confine his observation 
 to the name before him. He enlarges always 
 the scope of his paper, and runs afield, pick- 
 ing up here and there citations, and illus- 
 trating his points, by copious drafts on 
 literature, history, scenery, and episode. He 
 was well equipped for his task, and his wealth 
 of knowledge, his fine scholarly taste, hi» 
 remarkable grasp of everything that he un- 
 dertook, his extrr Tve reading, all within 
 call, added t> x captivating style, imparted 
 to his writings the tone which no other 
 essayist contemporary with him, save Mat- 
 thew Arnold, was able to achieve. Thoreau 
 and Emerson are adequately treated, and 
 the library of old authors is a capital digest, 
 which all may read with profit. The paper 
 on Carlyle, which is more than a mere review 
 of the old historian's *' Frederick the Great,'* 
 is a noble bit of writing, sympathetic in 
 touch, and striking as a portrait. It was 
 written in 1866. And then there are papers 
 in the volumes on Lessing, Swinburne's Tra- 
 
100 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 gedies, Rousseau, and the Sentimentalists, 
 and Josiah Quincy, ^hich bring out Mr. 
 Lowell's critical acumen even stronger. Every 
 one who has read anything during the last 
 fifteen years or so, must remember that 
 bright Atlantic essay on *' A Certain Condes- 
 cension in Foreigners." It is, in Mr. Lowell's 
 serenesf vein, hitting right and left skilful 
 blows, and asserting constantly his lofty 
 Americanism. The essay was needed. A 
 lesson had to be given, and no better hands 
 could have imparted it. Mr. Lowell was a 
 master of form in literary composition, — that 
 is in his prose, for he has been caught nap- 
 ping, occasionally, in his poetry, — and his 
 •difficulty was slight in choosing his words. 
 
 As a speaker he was successful. His ad- 
 dresses before noted gatherings in Britain and 
 elsewhere are highly artistic. In Westmin- 
 ster Abbey he pronounced two, one on Dean 
 Stanley, and the other on Coleridge, which, 
 though brief, could scarcely be excelled, so 
 perfect, so admirable, so dignified are they. 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 101 
 
 The same may be said of the addresses on 
 General Garfield, Fielding, Wordsworth, and 
 Don Quixote. Mr. Lowell on such occasion* 
 always acquitted himself gracefully. He had 
 few gestures, his voice was sweet, and the 
 beauty of his language, his geniality, and 
 courteous manner drew every one towards 
 him. He was a great student, and preacher, 
 and teacher of reform. He was in favour of 
 the copyright law, and did his utmost to 
 bring it about. He worked hard to secure 
 tariff reform, and a pet idea of his was the 
 reformation of the American civil service 
 system. On all these subjects he spoke and 
 wrote to the people with sincerity and ear- 
 nestness. When aroused he could be eloquent, 
 and even in later life, sometimes, some of the 
 fire of the early days when he fought the 
 slaveholders and the oppressors, would burst 
 out with its old time energy. He was ever 
 outspoken and fearless, regardless, apparent- 
 ly, of consequences, so long as his cause was 
 just. 
 
102 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 As professor of helles-lettreH at Harvard 
 University, he had ample opportunity for 
 cultivating his literary studies, and though 
 he continued to take a lively interest always 
 in the political changes and upheavals con- 
 stantly going on about him, he never applied 
 for office. In politics he was a Republican. 
 His party offered him the mission to Russia, 
 but he declined the honour. During the 
 Hayes administration, however, when his 
 old class-mate, General Devens, had a seat 
 in the Cabinet, the government was more 
 successful with him. He was tendered the 
 post of Minister to Spain. This was in 1877, 
 and he accepted it, somewhat half-hearcedly, 
 to be sure, for he had misgivings about leav- 
 ing his lovely home at Elm wood, the house 
 he was born in, the pride and glory of his 
 life, the locale of many of his poems, the his- 
 toric relic of royalist days. And then again, 
 he did not care to leave the then unbroken 
 circle of friends, for Dr. Holmes, John 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 103 
 
 Holmes,* Agassiz, Longfellow, Norton, 
 Fields, John Bartlett, Whipple, Hale, James 
 Freeman Clarke, and others of the famous 
 Saturday Club, he saw almost every day. 
 And then, yet again, there was the whist 
 club, how could he leave that ? But he was 
 overcome, and he w^ent to Spain, and began, 
 among the grandees and dons, his diplomatic 
 career. His fame had preceded him, and he 
 knew the language and literature of Cervantes 
 well. It was not long before he became the 
 friend of all with whom he came into con- 
 tact. But no great diplomatic work engaged 
 his attention, for there was none to do. The 
 Queen Mercedes died, during his term, much 
 beloved, and Mr, Lowell wrote in her me- 
 mory one of his most chaste and beautiful 
 sonnets : — 
 
 *' Hers all that earth could promise or bestow, 
 Youth, Beauty, Love, a crown, the beckon- 
 ing years, 
 
 * One of the most genial of men, brother of 
 the poet, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
104 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 Lids never wet, unless with joyous tears, 
 A life remote from every sordid woe 
 And by a nation's swelled to lordlier flow. 
 What lurkinpf -place, thought we, for 
 
 doubts or fears. 
 When, the day's swan, she swam along 
 the cheers 
 Of the Acalil, five happy months ago? 
 
 The guns were shouting lo Hymen then 
 That, on her birthdaj-, now denounce her 
 doom; 
 The same white steeds that tossed their 
 scorn of men 
 To-day as proudly drag her to the tomb. 
 Grim jest of fate ! Yet who dare call it 
 
 blind. 
 Knowing what life is, what our human- 
 kind I " 
 
 In 1880, he was transferred to London, as 
 ** his excellency, the ambassador of Ameri- 
 can literature to the court of Shakespeare,'* 
 as a writer in the Spectator deliciously put it. 
 He had a good field to work in, but, as the 
 duties were light, he had ample time on his 
 hands. He went about everywhere, the idol 
 of all, the most engaging of men. Natural- 
 ly, his tastes led him among scholars who in 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 105 
 
 their turn made much of him. He was asked 
 frequently to speak, or deliver addresses and 
 he always responded with tact. The univer- 
 sities of Oxford and Cambridge conferred on 
 him their highest honours and the ancient 
 Scottish University of Saint Andrew elected 
 him Rector, — a rare compliment, Emerson,, 
 only, being the other citizen of the United: 
 States so marked out for academic distinc- 
 tion. Some of his compatriots hinted that 
 his English life was making him un-Ameri- 
 can. Others more openly asserted that the 
 United States ]Minister was fast losing the re- 
 publican feelings which he took from Amer- 
 ica, and wasbecoming a British Conservative. 
 The reply to those innuendoes and charges. 
 will be found in his spirited address on De- 
 mocracy, which proves undeniably, his sturdy 
 faitli in American institutions, American 
 principles, and American manhood. Mr. 
 Lowell maintained to the letter the political 
 and national views which had long guided 
 
 his career. His admirable temper and agree- 
 7 
 
106 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 able manner won the hearts of the people, 
 but no effort was made to win him away 
 from his allegiance, nor would he have per- 
 mitted it had it been tried. In addition to 
 being a great man and a well-informed states- 
 man, he was a gentleman of culture and re- 
 finement. His gentleness and amiability- 
 may have been misconstrued by some, but 
 be that as it may, the fact remains, he never 
 showed weakness in the discharge of his dip- 
 lomatic duties. He represented the United 
 States in the fullest sense of the term. In 
 1885, he returned to America, Mr. E. J. 
 Phelps taking his place, under President 
 Cleveland. Though a Republican, Mr. 
 Lowell differed from his party on the presi- 
 dential candidate question. He favoured the 
 election of the Democrat nominee. Had he 
 been in America during the campaign, he 
 would have been found with Mr. George 
 William Curtis,* and his friends, opposing 
 
 * Mr. Curtis died at his home, at Living- 
 ston, Staten Island, New York, on Wednes- 
 day, 3 1st August, 1892. He was a Republican, 
 but abandoned his party when Mr. James 
 Gillespie Blaine was nominated. 
 
LOWELL. 
 
 107 
 
 the return of Mr. Blaine. From 1885 to the 
 date of his death, he added little to the vol- 
 ume of his literary work. He spent part of 
 his time in England, and part in the United 
 States. A poem, a brief paper, and an address 
 or two, came from his pen, at irregular in- 
 tervals. He edited a complete edition of his 
 writings in ten volumes, and left behind him 
 a few papers,* and, an unfinished biography 
 of Hawthorne, which he was preparing for the 
 American Men of Letters Series. 
 
 *■ IVie Old English Dramatists, — a series of 
 papers on Marlowe, Webster, Chapman, 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, and Middleton and 
 Ford, — written by Prof. Lowell in 1887, and 
 delivered as lectures before the Lowell Insti- 
 tute, wa'3 published, under the editorship of 
 Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, his literary executor, 
 in Harper's Ma(ja7.ine in 1892, and subsequent- 
 ly in book-form, by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin 
 & Co., Boston. Though rapidly written and 
 never revised by their autlior, these essays 
 stand out as masterly efforts in honest criti- 
 cism. 
 
fH I! n 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 {The Arena, Bo-ston, J/a.s.s., Jn/i/, J SOI.) 
 
 -§— 
 
 The Gift i.s thine the ivecinj world to make. 
 
 More cheerful for fhji mke, 
 Soothinii the earn itn Miserere pains. 
 With the old Hellenic strains, 
 
 Liijhtinfj the snllcn face of discontent 
 With smiles for bles>,in<js sent. 
 
 Enoiujh of Self sh trail i}i<j has been had, 
 Thank Ood ! for notes more (jlad. 
 
 John G keen leaf Whittier. 
 
 rpO tlie year 1809, the world is very nnich 
 ^ indebted for a band of notable recruits 
 to the ranks of literature and science, states- 
 manship and military renown. One need 
 mention only a few names to establish that 
 fact, and grand names they are, for the list 
 includes Darwin, Gladstone, Erastus Wilson, 
 John Hill Burton, Manteuffei, Count Beust, 
 
110 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 Lord Houghton, Lord Tennyson, and Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes. Each of these has played 
 an important part in the world's history, 
 and impressed the age with a genius tliat 
 marks an epoch in the great department of 
 human activity and progress. The year 
 was pretty well advanced, and the month of 
 August had reached its 29th day, when the 
 wife of Dr. Abiel Holmes presented tlie 
 author of " The American Annals " with a 
 son who was destined to take his place in 
 the front line of poets, thinkers, and essayists. 
 The babe was born at Cambridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, in the centre ( f a Puritan civili- 
 zation, which could scarcely have been in 
 touch and harmony with the emphasized 
 Unitarianism emanating from Harvard. But 
 Abiel Holmes was a genial, generous-hearted 
 man, and despite the severity of his religious 
 belief, contrived to live on terms of a most 
 agreeable character with his neighbours. A 
 Yale man himself, and the firm friend of his 
 old professor, the president of that institu- 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 tion, who had given him his daughter Mary 
 to wed (she died five years after her mar- 
 riage), we may readily believe that for a time. 
 Harvard University, then strongly under 
 the sway of the Unitarians, had little fas- 
 cination for him. But his kindly nature 
 conquered the repugnance he may have felt, 
 and he soon got on well with all classes of 
 the little communit}^ which surrounded 
 him. By his first wife he had no children. 
 But five, three daughters and two sons, 
 blessed his union with Sarali Wendell, the 
 accomplished daughter of the Hon. Oliver 
 Wendell, of Boston. We may pass briefly 
 over the early years of Oliver Wendell Hol- 
 mes. He was educated at the Phillips Aca- 
 demy at Exeter, and subsecpiently entered 
 Harvard University, where he was graduat- 
 ed, with high honours, in 1829, and belonged 
 to that class of young fellows who, in after 
 life, greatly distinguished themselves. Some 
 of his noblest poems were written in memory 
 of that class, such as " Bill and Joe," '* A 
 
112 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 Song of Twenty-nine," "The Old Man 
 Dreams," "Our SMeet Singer," and ** Our 
 Banker," all of them breathing love and 
 respect for the boys with wliom the poet 
 studied and matriculated. Young Holmes 
 was destined for the law, but Chitty and 
 Blackstone apparently had little charm for 
 him, for after a year's trial, he abandoned 
 the field and took up medicine. His mind 
 could not have been much impressed with 
 statutes, for all the time that he was sup- 
 posed to be conning over abstruse points in 
 jurisprudence, he was sending to the printers 
 .some of the cleverest and most waggisli con- 
 i;ributions which have fallen from his pen. 
 The CoUefjian, — the university journal of 
 those days, — published most of these, and 
 though no name was attached to the screeds, 
 it was fairly well known that Holmes was 
 the author. The companion writers in the 
 Colkfjian were Simmons, who wrote over the 
 signature of '* Lockfast; " John 0. Sargent, 
 poet and essayist, whose nom de j^^time was 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 113 
 
 *' Charles Sherry" ; Robert Hal)crsluiin, the 
 " Mr. Airy " of the grouj^ ; and tliat clever 
 young trifler, Theodore Snow, Mho delighted 
 the readers of the periodical with the works 
 of "CeoflVey La Touche." Of these, o" 
 course, Holmes was the life and soul, and 
 though sixty years have j)assed away since 
 he enriclied the columns of the CoUetjian with 
 the ^ruits of his nuise, more than half of the 
 pieces survive, and are deemed good enough 
 to hold a place beside his maturer produc- 
 tions. " Evening by a Tailor," " The :\Ieet- 
 ing of Dryads," and "The Spectre Pig," — 
 the latter in the vein of Tom Hood at his 
 best, — will be remem]>ered as among those 
 in the collection whicli may be read to-day 
 with the zest, appreciation, and delight which 
 they inspired more than half a century ago. 
 Holmes' connection with the CoUe<jian had a 
 most inspiriting effect on liis fellow contri- 
 butors, who found tlieir wits sharpened l)y 
 contact with a mind that was forever buoyant 
 and overflowing with humour and good 
 
114 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 nature. In friendly rivalry, those kindred 
 intellects vied with one another, and no more 
 brilliant college paper was ever published 
 than the Colleyian, and this is more remark- 
 able still, when we come to consider the fact, 
 that at that time, literature in America was 
 practically in its infancy. Nine years before, 
 Sydney Smith had asked his famous question, 
 *' Who reads an American book ? who goes 
 to an American play ? " And to that query 
 there was really no answer. Six numbers 
 of the CoUff/ian were issued, and they must 
 have proved a revelation to the men and 
 women of that day, whose reading, hitherto, 
 had almost been confined to the imported 
 article from beyond the seas, for Washington 
 Irving wrote with the pen of an English 
 gentleman, Bryant and Dana had not yet 
 made their mark in distinctively American 
 authorship, and Cooper's " Prairie '' was just 
 becoming to ]:)e understood by the critics 
 and people. 
 
 Shaking the dust of the law office from 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 115 
 
 his shoes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, abandon- 
 ing literature for a time, plunged boldly into 
 the study of a profession for which he had 
 always evinced a strong predilection. The 
 art and practice of medical science had ever 
 a fascination for him, and he made rapid 
 progress at the university. Once or twice 
 he yielded to impulse, and wrote a few bright 
 things, anonymously, for the Ilarhinger,— 
 the paper which Epes Sargent and Park 
 Benjamin published for the benefit of a 
 charitable institution, and dedicated as a 
 May gift to the ladies who had aided the 
 Kew England Institution for the Education 
 of the Blind. In 1S33, Holmes sailed for 
 Paris, where he studied medicine and sur- 
 gery, and walked the hospitals. Three years 
 were spent a])road, and tlien the young 
 student returned to Cambridge to take liis 
 medical degree at Harvard, and to deliver 
 his metrical Essay on Poetry, before the 
 Phi-Bcta-Kappa Society. In this year too, 
 1836, he published his fir«t acknowledged 
 
116 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 book of poems, — a duodecimo volume of less 
 than two hundred pages. In this collection 
 his Essay on Poetry appeared. It describes 
 the art in four stages, ri::., the Pastoral or 
 Bucolic, the Martial, the F^pic, and the Dra- 
 matic. In illustration of his views, he furn- 
 ished exemplars from his own prolific muse, 
 and his striking poem of " Old Ironsides " 
 was printed for the first time, and sprang at 
 a bound into national esteem. And in this 
 first book, there was included that little 
 poem, *' The Last Leaf," better work than 
 which Holmes has never done. It is in a 
 vein which he has developed much since 
 then. (Uace, humour, pathos, and happiness 
 of phrase and idea, are all to be found in its 
 delicious stanzas : — 
 
 T saw him once hefore, 
 As he passed hy the door, 
 
 And again 
 The pavement stones resound, 
 As he totters o'er the ground 
 
 With his cane. 
 
HOLMES. 117 
 
 They say that in his prime, 
 Ere the pruiiinp^-kaife of Time 
 
 Cut him dowa, 
 Not a better man was foiiud 
 By the Crier on his round 
 
 Through the town. 
 
 But now he walks the streets, 
 And he looks at all he meets, 
 
 Sad and wan ; 
 And he shakes his feeble head, 
 That it seems as if he said, 
 
 '' They are gone ! " 
 
 The mossy marbles rest 
 
 On the lips that he has prest 
 
 In their bloom, 
 And the names he loved to hear 
 Have been carved for many a year 
 
 On the tomb. 
 
 My grandmamma has said- 
 Poor old lady, she is dead 
 
 Long ago — 
 That he had a Roman nose, 
 And his cheek was like a rose 
 
 In the snow. 
 
 But now his nose is thin. 
 And it rests upon his chin 
 Like a staff: 
 
118 HOLMES. 
 
 And a crook is in his back, 
 And a melancholy crack 
 In his laugh. 
 
 I know it is a sin 
 For me to sit and grin 
 
 At him here ; 
 But the old three-cornered hat, 
 And the breeches, and all that, 
 
 Are so queer! 
 
 And if I should live to be 
 The last leaf upon the tree 
 
 In the spring. 
 Let them smile as I do now. 
 At the old forsaken bough 
 
 Where I cling. 
 
 In 1838, Doctor Holmes accepted his first 
 professorial position, and became professor 
 of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth. 
 Two years later, he married, and took up 
 the practice of medicine in Boston. In 1847, 
 he returned to his old love, accepting the 
 Parkman professorship of anatomy and phy- 
 siology, in the Medical School at Harvard. 
 While engaged in teaching, he prepared for 
 publication several important books and 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 119 
 
 reports relating to his profession, and his 
 papers in the various medical journals at- 
 tracted great attention by their freshness, 
 clearness, and originality. But it is not as 
 a medical man that Doctor Holmes may be 
 discussed in this paper. We have to deal 
 altogether with his literary career, — a career, 
 which for its brilliancy has not been surpass- 
 ed on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
 As a poet he differs much from his con- 
 temporaries, but the standard he has reached 
 is as high as that which has been attained by 
 Lowell and Longfellow. In lofty verse he is 
 strong and unconventional, writing always 
 with a firm grasp on his subject, and em- 
 phasizing his perfect knowledge of melody 
 and metre. As a writer of occasional verse 
 he has not had an eij^ual in our time, and his 
 pen for threescore years has been put to 
 frequent use in celebration of all sorts of 
 events, whether military, literary, or scien- 
 tific. Bayard Taylor said, '* He lifted the 
 'occasional' into the 'classic,'" and the 
 
120 
 
 H0L:\rE8. 
 
 phrase hcappily expresses the truth. The 
 vivacious character of his nature readily 
 lends itself to work of this sort, and though 
 the printed page gives the reader the spark- 
 ling epigram and the graceful lines, clear- 
 cut always and full of soul, the pleasure is 
 not quite the same as seeing and hearing him 
 recite his own poems, in the company of 
 congenial friends. His songs are full of 
 sunshine and heart, and his literary manner 
 wins by its simplicity and tenderness. Years 
 ago, Miss Mitford said that she knew no one 
 so thoroughly original. For him she could 
 find no living prototype. And so she went 
 back to the time of Jolm Dryden to find a 
 man to whom she might compare him. And 
 Lowell in his *' Fable for Critics," describes 
 Holmes as 
 
 " A Leyden-jar full-charpjed, from which flit 
 The electrical tingles of hit after hit." 
 
 His lyrical pieces are among the best of 
 
 1* compositions, and his ballads, too few in 
 
 rtnber, betray that love which he has al- 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 121 
 
 of 
 
 ways felt for tlie melodious minstrelsy of the 
 ancient bards. Whittier thought that the 
 "Chambered Nautilus" was "booked for 
 immortality." In the same list may be put 
 the " One-Hoss Shay," "Contentment," 
 " Destination," " How the Old Horse Won 
 the Bet," "The Broomstick Train," and 
 that lovely family portrait, " Dorothy Q— ," 
 a poem with a history. Dorothy Quincy's 
 picture, cold and hard, painted by an un- 
 known artist, hangs on the wall of tlie poet's 
 home in Beacon Street. A hole in the can- 
 vas marks the spot where one of King 
 George's soldiers thrust his bayonet. The 
 lady was Dr. Holmes' grandmother's mother, 
 and she is represented as being about thirteen 
 years of age, with 
 
 Girlish bust, but womanly air; 
 
 Smooth, square forehead, with uprolled hair;. 
 
 Lips that lover has never kissed ; 
 
 Taper fingers and slender wrist ; 
 
 Hanging sleeves of stiff" brocade ; 
 
 So they painted the little maid. 
 
 S 
 
122 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 4r^. 
 
 And the poet goes on : — 
 
 What if a hundred years ago 
 
 Those close-shut lips had answered no, 
 
 When forth the tremulous question came 
 
 That cost the maiden her Norman name, 
 
 And under the folds that look so still, 
 
 The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill ! 
 
 Should I be I, or would it be 
 
 One tenth another, to nine tenths me? 
 
 Soft is the breath of a maiden's yes, 
 Not the light gossamer stirs with less ; 
 Eut never a cable that holds so fast 
 Through all the battles of wave and blast. 
 And never an echo of speech or song 
 That lives in the babbling air so long ! 
 There were tones in the voice that whisper- 
 ed then, 
 You may hear to-day in a hundred men. 
 
 lady and lover, how faint and far 
 Your images hover, and here we are, 
 Solid and stirring in flesh and bone, 
 Edward's and Dorothy's — all their own, 
 A goodly record for time to show 
 Of a syllable spoken so long ago ! 
 Sha|l I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive 
 For the tender whisper that bade me live ? 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 123 
 
 It shall be a blessing, my little maid! 
 I will heal the stab of the red-coat's blade, 
 And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, 
 And gild with n rhyme your household name; 
 So you shall smile on us brave and bright, 
 As first you greeted the morning's light, 
 And live untroubled by woes and fears ' 
 Through a second youth of a hundred years. 
 
 Dr. Holmes' colouring is invariably artistic. 
 
 Nothing in his verse offends the eye or grates 
 
 unpleasantly on the car. He is a true 
 
 musician, and his story, joke, or passing 
 
 fancy is always joined to a measure which 
 
 never halts. - The Voiceless," perhaps, as 
 
 well as -Under the Violets," ought to be 
 
 mentioned among the more tender verses 
 
 which we have from his pen, in his higher 
 
 mood. 
 
 His novels are object lessons, each one 
 having been written with a well-defined pur- 
 pose in view. But unlike most novels with 
 a purpose, the three which he has written 
 are nowise dull. The first of the set is 
 
124 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 ** The Professor's Story ; or, Elsie Veniier," 
 the second is "The Guardian Angel," writ- 
 ten when the author was in his prime, and 
 the third is " A Mortal Antipathy," written 
 only a few years ago. In no sense are these 
 works commonplace. Their art is very su- 
 perb, and while they amuse, they afford the 
 reader much opportunity for reflection. Elsie 
 Venner is a romance of destiny, and a strange 
 physiological condition furnishes the key- 
 note and marrow of the tale. It is Holmes' 
 snake story, the taint of the serpent appear- 
 ing; in the daughter, w^hose mother was - itten 
 by a rattle-snake before her babe was born. 
 The traits inherited by this unfortunate ofF- 
 tpring from the reptile, find rapid develop- 
 ment. She becomes a creature of impulse, 
 and her life spent in a New England village, 
 at a ladies' academy, with its social and 
 religious surroundings, is described and 
 worked out with rare analytical skill, and 
 by a hand accustomed to deal with curious 
 scientific phenomena. The character draw- 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 125 
 
 ing is luliuirable, the episodes are striking 
 and original, and the seenery, earefuUy 
 clal)orated, is managed with fine jndgment. 
 Despite the idea, whieh to some may at .first 
 Ijhish appear revolting and startling, there is 
 nothing sensational in the book. The reader 
 observes only the growth and movement of 
 the poison in the girl's system, its effect on 
 her way of life, and its remarkable power 
 over lier mind. Horror or disgust at her 
 condition is not for one moment evoked. 
 The style is pure and ennobling, and while 
 our sympathies may be touched, we arc at 
 the same time fascinated and entertained, 
 from the first page to the last. Of (piite 
 different texture is "The Guardian Angel," 
 a perhaps more readable story, so far as 
 form is concerned, much lighter in character, 
 and less of a study. There is more plot, but 
 the range is not so lofty . It is less philoso- 
 phical in tone than " Elsie Venner,"and the 
 events move quicker. The scene of "The 
 Guardian Angel " is also laid in an ordinary 
 
126 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 New P^ngland village, and the object of the 
 Doctor-Novelist was to write a tale in which 
 the peculiarities and laws of hysteria 
 should find expression and development. In 
 carrying out his plan, Dr. Holmes has 
 achieved a genuine success. He has tauglit a 
 lesson, and at the same time has told a deep- 
 ly interesting story, lightened up here and 
 there with characteristic humour and wit. 
 The characters of Myrtle Hazard and Byles 
 Gridley are drawn with nice discrimination, 
 while the sketch of the village poet, Mr. 
 Gifted Hopkins, is so life-like and realistic, 
 that he has only to be named to be instantly 
 recognized. He is a type of the poet who 
 haunts the newspaper office, and belongs to 
 every town and hamlet. His lady-love is 
 Miss Susan Posey, a delicious creation in Dr. 
 Holmes' best manner. These two prove e:- 
 cellent foils for the stronger personage s of 
 the story, and afford much amusement. ** A 
 Mortal Antipathy " is less of a romance than 
 the others. The reader will be interested 
 
UOLMKS. 
 
 127 
 
 in the description of a boat race which is ex- 
 quisitely done. 
 
 In biographical writing, we liave two 
 books from Dr. Holmes, one a short life of 
 Emerson, and the other a memoir of Motley. 
 Though capable of writing a great biog- 
 raphy like Trcvelyan's Macaulay or Lock- 
 hart's Scctt, the doctor has not yet done so. 
 Of the two which he has written, the Motley 
 is the better one. In neither, however, has 
 tlie author arrived at his own standard of 
 what a biography should be. 
 
 Mechanism in Thought and Morals,— a 
 Phi-Beta-Kappa address, delivered at Har- 
 vard in 1870,— is one of Dr. Holmes' most 
 luminous contributions to popular science. 
 It is ample in the way of suggestion and the 
 presentation of facts, and though scientific 
 in treatment, the captivating style of the 
 essayist relieves the paper of all heaviness. 
 A brief extract from this fine, thoughtful 
 work may be given here : — 
 
\^i 
 
 128 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 '^We nish to remember something in tbo 
 course of conversation. No eflort of the will 
 can reach it ; but \vc say, ' wait a minute, and 
 it will come to me,' and go on talking. Pre- 
 sently, perhaps some minutes later, the idea 
 we arc in search of comes all at once into the 
 mind, delivered like a prepaid Ijundle, laid at 
 the door of consciousness like a foundling in a 
 basket. How it came there we know not. 
 The mind must have been at work groping 
 and feeling for it in the dark ; it cannot have 
 come of itself. Yet all the while, our con- 
 sciousness Avas bu^y with oilier thoughts." 
 
 The literary reputation of Dr. Holmes will 
 rest on the three great books which have 
 made his name famous on two continents. 
 Thackeray had passed his fortieth year before 
 he produced his magnificent novel. Holmes, 
 too, was more than forty when he began 
 that unique and original ])ook, *' The Auto- 
 crat of the Breakfast Table," one of the most 
 thoughtful, graceful, and able investigations 
 into philosopliy and culture ever written. 
 We have the author in every mood, playful 
 and pathetic, witty and wise. ^Vho can 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 129 
 
 1 
 
 ever forget the young fellow callecl John, our 
 Benjamin Franklin, the Divinity student, 
 the school-mistress, the landlady's daughter, 
 and the Foor Relation ? \Vhat characteriza- 
 tion is there here ! The deliglitful talk of the 
 Autocrat, his humour, always infectious, liis 
 logic, his strong common sense, brighten 
 every page, ^^'hen he began to write, Dr. 
 Holmes had iio settled plan in his head. In 
 November, 18.31, he sent an article to the 
 Ntiv EiKjland Maija'^hio, published by Buck- 
 ingham in Boston, followed ])y another paper 
 in Fel)ruary, 1832. The idea next occurred 
 to the author in 1857, — a quarter of a century 
 afterwards, when the editors of the Atlantic 
 MonthJy^ then starting on its career, l)egged. 
 him to write something for its pages. He 
 thought of *'The Autocrat, " and resolved, 
 as he says, " to shake the ^aiiie bough again, 
 and see if the ripe fruit were better or worse 
 than the early windfalls." At a bound '* The 
 Autocrat " leaped into popular favour. The 
 reading puVjlic could hardly wait for the 
 
130 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 numbers. All sorts of topics are touched 
 upon from nature to mankind. There is the 
 talk about the trees, which one may read a 
 dozen times and feel the better for it. And 
 then comes that charming account of the 
 walk with the school-mistress, when the 
 lovers looked at the elms, and the roses 
 came and went on the maiden's cheeks. And 
 here is a paragraph or two which makes men 
 think : 
 
 *' Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The 
 iingol of life winds them up once for all, then 
 closes the case, and gives the key into the 
 hand of the Angel of the Resurrection. Tic- 
 tac ! tic-tac ! go the wheels of thought; our 
 will cannot stop them ; they cannotstop them, 
 selves ; sleep cannot still tliera ; madness only 
 makes them go faster ; death alone can break 
 into the case, and seizing the ever-swinging 
 pendulum, which we call the heart, silence at 
 last the clicking oi the terrible escapement we 
 have carried so long beneath our wrinkled 
 foreheads. 
 
 ** If we could only get at them, as we lie on 
 our pillows and count the dead beats of 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 131 
 
 tiy 
 
 ed 
 
 on 
 of 
 
 thought after thought, and image after image, 
 jarring throug:h the overtired organ ! Will 
 nobody block those wheels, uncouple that 
 pinion, cut the string that holds those weights, 
 blow up the infernal machine with gun-pow- 
 der ? What a passion comes over us sometimes 
 for silence and rest! — that this dreadful me- 
 chanism, unwinding the endless tapestry of 
 time, embroidered with spectral figures of 
 life and death, could have but one l)rief holi- 
 day ! Who can wonder that men swing them- 
 selves t 'rfrom beams in hempen lassos ? — that 
 they jump off from parapets into the swift and 
 gargling waters beneath ? — that they take 
 counsel of the grim friend who has but to utter 
 his one peremptory monosyllabic and the rest- 
 less machine ia shivered as a vase that is dash- 
 ed upon a marble floor? Under that building 
 which we pass every day there are strong dun- 
 geons, where neither hook, nor bar, nor bed- 
 cord, nor diirJ.iiig vessel from which a sharp 
 fragment may i .; shattered, shall by any 
 chance be sen. There is nothing for it, when 
 the brain is on "'e with the whirling of its 
 Avheels, r)ut to spring against the stone wall 
 and silence them with one crash. Ah, they 
 remembered that, — the kind city fathers, — and 
 the walls are nicely padded, so that one can 
 take such o 'ercise as he likes without damasr^ 
 
132 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 ing himself on the veiy plain and serviceable 
 upholsteiy. If anybody would only contrive 
 .some kind of a lever tliat one could thrust in 
 among the works of this horrid automaton 
 and chock them, or alter their rate of going, 
 what would the world give for the discovery?" 
 
 it rpi 
 
 The Autocrat " was followed by "The 
 Professor at the Breakf ust Table," — a book 
 in every way e{jaal to l i jt one, tliough, 
 to be sure, there are critic^ vvlio pretend to 
 see diminished pDwer in the anthor's pen. It 
 is, however, full of the same gentle humonr 
 and keen analyses of the follies and foibles 
 of human kind. It is a trilie gi-aver, tliough 
 some of the characters l)elonging to " The 
 Antocrat " come to the front again. It is in 
 this book that we find that lovely story of 
 Iris, — a masterpiece in itself and one of the 
 sweetest things that has come to us for a 
 hundred years, rivalling to a degree the 
 delicious manner and style of Goldsmith and 
 Lamb. In 1873 the last of the series appear- 
 ed, and *' The Poet " came upon the scene to 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 133 
 
 gladden the breakfasters. Every chapter 
 sparkles with originality. •'! have," says 
 Dr. Holmes, " unburdened myself in this 
 book, and in some other pages, of what I 
 was born to say. Many things that I have 
 said in my riper days have been aching in 
 my soul since I was a mere child. I say 
 aching, because they conflicted witli many of 
 my inherited beliefs, or rather traditions. I 
 did not know tlien that two strains of blood 
 were striving in me or the mastery — two I 
 twenty, perhaps, twenty tliousand, for aught 
 I know — but represented to me by two — 
 paternal and maternal. But 1 do know thisr 
 I have struck a good many chords, first and 
 last, in the consciousness of other people. I 
 confess to a tender feeling for my little 
 brood of thoughts. When they liave been 
 welcomed and praised, it has pleased me, 
 and if at any time tliey have been rudely 
 handled and despitefully treated, it lias cost 
 me a little worry. I don't despise reputa- 
 tion, and I should like to be remembered as 
 
134 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 having said something worth lasting well 
 enough to last." 
 
 There is much philosophy in " The Poet," 
 and if it is less humorous than "The Au- 
 tocrat," it is more profound than either of 
 its fellows in the great trio. In it the doctor 
 has said enough to make the reputations of 
 half a dozen authors. 
 
 **Our Hundred Days in Europe," if writ- 
 ten by anyone else save Dr. Holmes, would, 
 perhaps, go begging for a publisher. But he 
 journeyed to the old land with his heart 
 upon his sleeve. He met nearly every man 
 and woman worth knowing, and the Court, 
 Science, and Literature received him with 
 open arms. He had not seen England for 
 half a century. Fifty years before, he was 
 an obscure young man, studying medicine, 
 and known by scarcely half a dozen persons. 
 He returned in 1886, a man of world-wide 
 fame, and every hand was stretched out to 
 do him honour, and to pay him homage. Lord 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 135 
 
 Houghton,— the famous breakfast giver of 
 his time, certainly, the most successful since 
 the princely Rogers,— had met him in Boston 
 years before, and had begged him again and 
 again to cross the ocean. Letters failing to 
 move the poet, Houghton tried verse upon 
 him, and sent these graceful lines :— 
 
 When genius from the furthest West, 
 Sierra's Wilds and Poker Flat, 
 
 Can seek our shores with filial zest, 
 Why not ihe genial Autocrat ? 
 
 Why is this burden on us laid, 
 That friendly London never greets 
 
 The Peer of Locker, Moore, and Praed 
 From Boston's almost neighbour streets? 
 
 His earlier and maturer powers 
 His own dear land might well engage ; 
 
 We only ask a few kind hours 
 Of his serene and vigorous age. 
 
 Oh, for a glimpse of glorious Poe I 
 His raven grimly answers ' never I ' 
 
 Will Holmess milder muse say 'no,' 
 And keep our hands apart forever ? 
 
13G 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 l^ut he was not destined to see his friend. 
 AVlien Holmes arrived in England, Lord 
 Houghton was in his grave, and so was Dean 
 Stanley, whose sweetness of disposition had 
 so charmed the autocrat, when the two men 
 had met in Boston a few years before. Ruskin 
 he failed to meet also, for the distinguished 
 word-painter was ill. At a dinner, however, 
 at Archdeacon Farrar's, he spent some time 
 with Sir Jolui Millais and Prof. John Tyndall. 
 Of course, he saw (Jladstone, Tennyson, 
 Robert Browning, Chief Justice Coleridge, 
 Du Maurier, the illustrator of Punchy Prof. 
 James Brvce who wrote '* The American 
 Commonwealth,'* Lord Wolseley, Britain's 
 ** Only General," His Grace of Argyll, 
 Lord Lome and the Princess Louise, — one 
 of the best amateur painters and sculptors 
 in England, — and many others. Of all these 
 noted onea, he has something bright and 
 entertaining to say. The universities laid their 
 highest honours at his feet. Edinburgh gave 
 him the degree of LL.D., Cambridge that of 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 137 
 
 Doctor of Letters, and Oxford conf<^rred 
 upon him her D. C. L., his companion on the 
 last occasion being John Briglit. It was 
 at Oxford that he met Vice-Chancellor Ben- 
 jamin Jowett, the Master of Balliol College, 
 Prof. Max Miiller, Lord "and Lady Herschell, 
 and Prof. James Russell Lowell, his old and 
 unvarying friend. The account of his visit 
 to Europe is told with most engaging direct- 
 ness and simplicity, and though the book 
 has no permanent value, it affords much 
 entertainment for the time. 
 
 The reader will experience a feeling of sad- 
 ness, when he takes up Dr. Holmes' last 
 book, ''Over the Tea-cups," for there are 
 indications in the work which warn the pub- 
 lic that the genial pen will write hereafter 
 less frequently than usual. It is a witty 
 and delightful book, recalUng the Autocrat, 
 the Professor, and the Poet, and yet present- 
 ing features not to be found in either. The 
 
 author dwells on liis advancing years, but 
 9 
 
138 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 this he does not do in a querulous fashion. 
 He speaks of his contemporaries, and com- 
 pares the ages of old trees, and over tlie tea- 
 cups a thousand quaint, curious, and splen- 
 did things are said. The work takes a wide 
 range, but there is more sunshine than any- 
 thing else, and that indefinable charm, pecu- 
 liar to Holmes, enriches every page. One 
 might wish that he would never grow old. 
 As Lowell said, a few years ago, in a birth- 
 day verse to the doctor : — 
 
 ''You keep your youth as yon Scotch firs, 
 Whose gaunt line my horizon hems, 
 
 Though twilight all the lowland blurs, 
 Hold sunset in their rudd}^ stems. 
 
 Master alike in speech and song 
 Of fame's great anti-septic — style, 
 
 You with the classic few belong 
 Who tempered wisdom with a smile. 
 
 Outlive us all ! Who else like you 
 
 Could sift the seed corn from our chaflf 
 
 And make us, with the pen we knew, 
 Deathless at least in epitaph ? " 
 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 
 
 [The Arena, Boston, Ma,,., December, ISO I.) 
 
 However Life the stream may .stain, 
 
 From thy jmre fountain drank my youth 
 
 The sbnpJe creed, the faith humane 
 In Good, that nerer can be s/aln, 
 
 The prayer for in ward Lif/ht, the search for 
 outward Truth ! 
 
 Bayakd Taylor. 
 
 mHOUGH Mr. Whittier only died a short 
 J- time since,* his task was really finished, 
 and his best work had been given to the 
 public several years ago. Three or four years 
 have elapsed, since the writer spent a few 
 hour^with him at his pleasant home in Ames- 
 
 *Mr. Whittier died on the 7th September, 
 1892. This essay was published in December' 
 1891. Here and there, I have altered the 
 tense. 
 
140 
 
 WIIITTIER. 
 
 bury, Massachusetts, at that trymg season for 
 men advanced in life, mid-winter. The poet 
 did not complain of ill-health, but lie looked 
 very frail, and his seventy-nine years told 
 their own story. He spoke cheerfully of his 
 surroundings, and welcomed the visits of 
 friends. A few books he read, and now and 
 then he sent poems to the magazines. His 
 private correspondence had grown to great 
 proportions, and he was seriously thinking 
 of diminisliing the strain, even then. Dr. 
 Holmes' printed slip offered an ingenious 
 solution of the difficulty, and ''t was often 
 in his mind, he said, to adopt it. The fame 
 whicli his verses had won surprised him, 
 but tlie hundreds of applications which 
 yearly came to him from strangers, asking 
 for his autograph, took something away 
 from the pleasure which he naturally felt 
 at hearing that his lyrics had made thoir 
 way to the hearts of the people. In 
 person he was spare and tall. Age had 
 stooped him a little, but not too much, while 
 
WIIITTIKR. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In 
 
 ad 
 lie 
 
 his briglit, kin<lly face uas .sweet to look up- 
 on. The pliotogniphs and engravings do liiin 
 scant justice. In them he is )'epresented as 
 a severe and ascetic man, cold in eye, and 
 
 K^ympathetic in manner. Jiut ascetic and 
 severe he was not, and his sympathies, always 
 easily touched, lent to his countenance a 
 sweetness and l)eauty which the camera had 
 never been ahle to cat:;h. He was a mend)cr 
 of the Society of Friends, and in his corre- 
 spondence and talk, tlic conventional "thee" 
 and " tlu)u " were freely used. Familiar with 
 
 e drama from Shakespeare to liulwer Lyt- 
 . yxi, he never attended a theatrical perform- 
 ance in his life. Neither had he cv^er gone 
 to hear a lecture, even when the orator of 
 the evening happened to be a guest at his 
 house, and lectured in his own neighl)our- 
 hood. 
 
 After Longfellow, it may be snid that Mr. 
 Whittier is the most popular of all the 
 American poets. He is distinctively the 
 poet of New England, and his best and most 
 
m^'i' 
 
 142 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 characteristic work treats especially of rural 
 life and Jiiovement in the new world. His 
 contemporaries have picked their flowers from 
 the ^?a?Yerre.9 of the world, but Whittier has 
 confined himself to the homely scenes, and 
 incidents, and episodes belonging to his 
 native country. Indeed, he has gone further, 
 and has limited his vision almost to the circle 
 of States em])raced in the term New England, 
 New Hampshire in particular receiving the 
 greater amount of attention at his liands. 
 To find liow faithfully lie has described coun- 
 try life in New Hampshire, Massachusett:-*, 
 and Connecticut, one has only to take up Mr. 
 Longfellow's delightful scries of " Poems of 
 Places," two volumes of which are devoted 
 to poetry written about New England, and 
 compare liis worlc with that of tlie other 
 poets on the same subject. He excelled alike 
 in treatment and in number. His touch was 
 always delicate and true, and even the home- 
 liest things in common life lose their com- 
 monplace texture in the setting he gives them. 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
 143 
 
 A lyrist of undoubted strengtli and indivi- 
 duality, Mr. Whittier fell short when he 
 attempted the epic or the drama. The lyric 
 readily lent itself to his muse, and the leaping 
 numbers proclaimed at once his correct and 
 remarkable ear for melody, and his fine sense 
 of touch. His poetry suggests the idea that 
 his gift is fluency of expression. Rhyme, 
 apparently, had no terrors for him, and one 
 can imagine tliat he revised and changed very 
 little. Some of his more striking pieces were 
 undoubtedly written at white heat. Imagi- 
 nation of the highest order they do not exhi- 
 bit, but of their music and harmony there 
 can be no question. 
 
 Before considering his work, a little may 
 be said of the poet in the way of biograpliy. 
 An interesting life of him hay been written 
 by Dr. Underwood, who has adopted the 
 same agreeable method of inducing tlie 
 English reader to look at the writings of Mr. 
 Longfellow and Professor Lowell. Mr. Sted- 
 
144 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 man, the banker poet, gives us, in his ex- 
 haustiv^e ''Poets of America," much in the 
 way of genial criticism concerning the sul)- 
 ject of this sketch, and in various essays by 
 different pens, the Quaker poet and his career 
 in letters, have been discussed and enlarged 
 upon. Some day an adequate life of him 
 will appear, but, in the mean tune, the public 
 will have to be content with fragmentary 
 notes. He was born at Haverhill, Massachu- 
 setts, on the 17th December, 1807, in a house 
 which still stands a short distance from the 
 main road. The curious pilgrim is attracted 
 to the spot, for it is the scene of many of the 
 poet's tenderest songs and pastorals. At 
 seven years of age, the lad was sent to school, 
 where he met Joshua Coffin, the historian of 
 Newbury, his first teacher and life-long 
 friend. There is a school-master mentioned 
 in "Snow-bound," the most genre of Mr. 
 Whittier's work, as a 
 
 ^•' brisk wielder of the birch and rule," 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
 145 
 
 but the portrait is not intended for Coffin. 
 It is that of a young man, unnamed, who 
 came from Dartmouth College, with face 
 
 ^'Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 
 The uncertain prophecy ot beard." 
 
 Whittier's school-days were uneventful, 
 and his opportunities for gaining an edu- 
 cation were limited, the schools being poor, 
 and the teachers, who were changed every 
 year, having little skill in their art. Books, 
 too, were few in number. In his father's house 
 there were not more than twenty volumes 
 all told, and the majority of these were dull 
 indeed. One book, the reader will admit, 
 had little in it to attract a youth of Whittier's 
 calibre. It was the ' ' Davideis, " by Thomas 
 EUwood, the Quaker poet, and the inspirer 
 of Milton's " Paradise Regained." Yet the 
 New England boy read it, and re-read it, 
 and the Puritan blood in his veins was thrill- 
 ed with the story of David's life, albeit his 
 biographer relates the tale in stilted phrase, 
 
mmm 
 
 146 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 and a style that is dullness itself. The book 
 is a memory only now, but it formed a part 
 of Whit tier's early reading. A book of trav- 
 el or adventure was eagerly prized by him, 
 and often he would walk many miles away to 
 borrow a new volume. Of course the read- 
 ing of the Bible was a constant practice in 
 the Whittier household, and on First-day 
 afternoons Mrs. Whittier read and expound- 
 ed the Scriptures to her children, and 
 familiarized them witli the truths of the 
 Old and New Testaments. When not at 
 school, Whittier worked about the place, 
 learning, among other things, the craft of 
 tlie shoemaker, though he did not adopt the 
 calling in after life. Until he was eighteen, 
 he lived at the homestead, and worked on 
 the farm. One day a " pawky auld carle " 
 stopped at the house for refreshment, and 
 according to the custom of those days, the 
 visitor was regaled with bread and a mug of 
 home-made cider. In return for this court- 
 esy, he sang in a full, rich voice, * * Bonnie 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
 147 
 
 Doon," " Highland Mary," and " Auld Lang 
 Syne. " The ballads impressed the youthful 
 poet at once and he longed to read, in a book 
 of liis own, the songs and poems of Burns. 
 Joshua Coffin was the first to put into liis. 
 Iiands the volume his heart craved, and he 
 read it with great delight, mastering the 
 dialect by the aid of the glossary. He soon 
 beL'an writincj verses himself after the man- 
 ner of the Scottish poet These efforts^ 
 however, have not been preserved, but the 
 influence of Burns over Whitticr's mind 
 remained forever. His elder sister warndy 
 encouraged liim to persevere and her advice 
 he took, but his parents were not admitted 
 at first into the secret. William Lloyd Garri- 
 son, the poet's senior l)y three years, found- 
 ed, in 182(), the Newburyport Frac Prcs>i. 
 To that journal Whittier sent *' Tlie Deity," 
 — a paraphrase about the prophet Elijah. 
 It was amateurish, of course, but as a first 
 effort it proved by no means discreditable. 
 Garrison admired it, and gave it a prominent 
 
148 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 place in the Poet's Corner. Whittier's heart 
 jumped when he saw it in print. }Ie was 
 mending a fence when the news-carrier came 
 riding along the road at a dashing pace, and 
 as the paper fluttered at his feet he picked 
 it up and perhaps the first lines which cauglit 
 his eye were his own verses. It is said that 
 he "stood rooted to the spot, and had to he 
 called several times before he could return 
 to sublunary affairs." He was hoeing in a 
 cornfield when the editor called to see him. 
 Oarrison had learned the name of his con- 
 tributor, through the poet's sister, Mar}--, 
 and he was so hearty in his praises and con- 
 gratulations that Whittier was profoundly 
 touched. A family council was immediately 
 held. Whittier jiere was called in, but he 
 remonstrated against putting literary notions 
 into the young man's head. There were many 
 obstacles to surmount. Garrison advised 
 Whittier to attend a public institution where 
 he could receive proper training. This ex- 
 pense^ however, the elder Whittier could not 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
 14D 
 
 afford. The farm barely paid its way, but 
 at last the young man thought that he saw a 
 rift in the cloud, and he resolved to take his 
 friend's advice. He acquired the mystery 
 and art of slipper and shoe making, and dur- 
 ing the ensuing season he earned enough to 
 pay for a suit of clothes, and his board and 
 tuition for half a year. He went to the 
 academy in Haverhill, in April, 1827, where 
 he remained six montlis, prosecuting his 
 studies with zeal and energy. In the fol- 
 lowing winter, he taught the district school 
 at West Amesbury, and in the spring he 
 returned to the academy for another term. 
 While studying and teaching, he continued 
 to write for the press, and for a time he 
 occupied the chair of assistant editor of the 
 American Manufacturer, a protectionist pa- 
 per, friendly to the aspirations of Henry 
 Clay. For this service he was paid nine 
 dollars a week, but his father requiring him 
 on the farm, he returned home, and remained 
 there until July, 1830. It will not be neces- 
 
350 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 sary to trace in detail Whittier's editorial 
 career. He became connected witli many 
 papers, and his writings in prose and verse 
 soon grew voluminous and popular. He suc- 
 ceeded George D. Prentice in the manage- 
 ment of the Weekly Review at Hartford, 
 Conn., and finally became chief editor of 
 that journal. A year and a half later, he 
 went back to Haverhill. 
 
 In 1833, his great life-work began in earn- 
 est. It was at that time that a little band 
 of brave men took tlieir stand on the slavery 
 question. The abolitionists, as they were then 
 called, were regarded with high disfavour 
 by the people of the Korth and South alike. 
 They were openly assailed and insulted in 
 the streets, mobs struck them down, and in 
 the public lecture-rooms they were attacked 
 with stones. The very word abolitionist 
 was used as a term of reproach. Seldom has 
 a great reform been carried to a successful 
 issue under social trials so severe, and the 
 wonder is that men could be found willing to 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
 151 
 
 toriiil 
 many 
 verso 
 e suc- 
 mage- 
 tforel, 
 tor of 
 er, he 
 
 1 earn- 
 i band 
 jlaveiy 
 re then 
 favour 
 alike. 
 Ited in 
 and in 
 tacked 
 tionist 
 om has 
 cessful 
 id the 
 iling to 
 
 undertake the cause of the slave at the sacri- 
 fice entailed. Every person connected with it 
 literally carried his life in his hands, and the 
 unfriendly press conducted as it was with 
 bitterness and rancor, hounded the assailants 
 of the movement to deeds of violence and 
 atrocity. In Philadelphia, on the 4th, 5th, 
 and 6th December, the National Convention 
 was held. Garrison had just returned from 
 England, full of the spirit of British freedom 
 of speech and manhood. Wliittier attended 
 the Congress as delegate and secretary. 
 Wendell Phillips, in his prime, was the prin- 
 cipal speaker. Whittier signe d the famous 
 declaration of sentiments, and became, by 
 that act, forever committed to the cause. 
 A copy of this document he kept to the last, 
 framed with the wood of Pennsylvania Hall, 
 which the pro-slavery mob destroyed a few 
 year afterwards. In 1834, he helped to estab- 
 lish an anti-slavery society in Haverhill, but 
 at the first meeting the crowd broke in and 
 scattered the audience in all directions. 
 
152 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 Samuel May with great difficulty escaped 
 death, and Elizabeth Whittier, the poet's sis- 
 ter, was severely bruised. But these scenes 
 were only a repetition of experiences going on 
 all over the Northern States. Whittier witli 
 voice and pen warred against the blight on 
 his native land, and his poems, at first 
 despised, after a time, burned into the minds 
 of the people and influenced public thought. 
 He wrote so much that his work, at this 
 period, proved often nne^'^en in merit. Few 
 of the anti-slavery poems are worthy to 
 stand alongside of his later pieces, but their 
 sincerity and earnestness give them an exalt- 
 ed and assured position in the literature of 
 America. II must not be forgotten that 
 many of them were written for a purpose, 
 and that purpose they served well. The 
 ** Songs of Freedom" have a place of their 
 own in the letters of the United States, and 
 though the critic of style and of manner may 
 find them faulty and wanting in certain 
 forms of poetic beauty, no one will doubt 
 
WHITTIEK. 
 
 153 
 
 3aped 
 
 's sis- 
 icenea 
 ing on 
 r with 
 lit on 
 first 
 minds 
 ought. 
 it this 
 Few 
 hy to 
 their 
 exalt- 
 iire of 
 , that 
 rpose, 
 The 
 their 
 and 
 r may 
 rtain 
 oubt 
 
 tlieir vigour and terrible earnestness. The 
 noble " Song of the Slaves in the Desert " is 
 very strong. Its origin may be traced to 
 Richardson'-^ Journal. One evening the fe- 
 male slaves were full of excitement, and sang 
 in their strange, weird fashion the melan- 
 choly dirge which they often chanted when 
 in a fearful mood. The song was in the Bornou 
 or Mandara tongue, and the word Ruhee was 
 fre(j[uently heard. Curious to know the 
 purport of these plaintive strains, Richard- 
 son asked Said what the slaves were singing 
 about. The interpreter responded, *' They 
 sing of Rabee (God), and they ask from Him 
 tlieir Atka, which means their certificate of 
 freedom ! Oh, where are we going, O God ? 
 The world is large, God ; Bornou was a 
 pleasant country, full of good things ; but 
 this is a bad country, and we are miserable." 
 Over and over again these poor creatures 
 sang these words, wringing their hands till 
 fatigue and suffering struck them down, and 
 
 then the silence of the desert remained un- 
 10 
 
154 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 broken for a time. It was this sad story of 
 anguish and despair that emphasized itself 
 into the heart of the New England poet, and 
 he wrote his tearful, pathetic song witli every 
 sympathy keenly aroused. 
 In another poem he cries : — 
 
 *' Woe, then, to all who grind 
 Their brethren of a common Father down." 
 
 And again he exclaims with indignation : — • 
 
 ** What, ho ! Our countrymen in chains ? 
 The whip on woman's shrinking tlesh ? 
 Our soil yet reddened with the stains 
 Caught from her scourging, warm and 
 fresh ? 
 
 " What I mothers from their children riven ? 
 What I God's own image bought and 
 sold? 
 Americans to market driven, 
 And bartered as the brute for gold ? '^ 
 
 These songs nerved the people to action. 
 Sharp and aggressive and full of truth, they 
 became formidable weapons in the hands of 
 the campaigners. Garrison deprecated polit« 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
 ^ •" ** 
 
 loo 
 
 ical action, but Whittier was strongly in 
 favour of it. Garrison refused to vote, but 
 Whittier had great faith in the ballot-box. 
 Both men pursued their way, working to- 
 gether when convenient, and never losing 
 sight of the mighty task they had iu view. 
 Whittier 's aim was to reach the masses, and, 
 while he wrote much in prose, he soon found 
 that it was his poetry which touched men's 
 hearts and inflamed their breasts. So he 
 kept on singing his songs of freedom, and 
 this burst in the Liberator fell like a thunder 
 clap on startled ears : — 
 
 ** Go,— let us ask of Constantine 
 
 To loose his grasp on Poland's throat ; 
 And beg the lord of Mahmoud's liae ' 
 
 To spare the struggling Suliote ;— 
 Will not the scorching answer come 
 From turbaned Turk and scornful Russ : 
 ' Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, 
 Then turn and ask the like of us ' ? " 
 
 1^ 
 
 At the meetings of the anti-slavery so- 
 ci' les, poems by Whittier were always read 
 
156 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 amid enthusiasm. Then came the war and Lin- 
 coln's proclamation emancipating the black 
 man, and the despised abolitionist's victory 
 was complete. But the old Adam died hard, 
 particularly in Boston. It was proposed, on 
 the 1st of January, 1863, to celebrate the 
 edict of freedom to the slave. It proved a 
 difficult task to get men to serve on the com- 
 m.ittee. Singers were invited to take part. 
 Most of them returned their invitations with 
 indignant comments, and the chorus was 
 meagre and unsatisfactory. But, after all, 
 the meeting was fairly successful, though the 
 music was weak. Emerson read his '* Bos- 
 ton Hymn," and his serene and benign pre- 
 sence, doubtless, saved the demonstration 
 from failure. 
 
 The outbreak of hostilities between the 
 North and the South was the signal for the 
 writers of war songs to move the country. 
 Whittier, from whom much was expected, 
 hesitated to engage his pen. The secession 
 movement he regarded as the performance 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
 157 
 
 of a madman. Of its failure he never held 
 the slightest doubt, but being a man of 
 peace, he wished to remain a silent but 
 heart-wrung spectator. Once, indeed, he 
 said that he would not write, but his mind 
 underwent a change, at the last, and the 
 splendid collection, *'In War Time," was 
 the result. The poems in tliat volume ap- 
 peared at intervals, during the progress of 
 tlie fratricidal strife. Most of them are in 
 ballad form, and the more famous of them 
 all is ''Barbara Frietchie, "-founded on a 
 legend which, in after years, the poet dis- 
 covered was not historically correct. Whittier 
 had the story from a Virginian lady. It 
 runs thus: "When Lee's army occupied 
 Frederick, the only Union flag displayed in 
 the city was held from an attic by Mrs. 
 Barbara Frietchie, a widow, aged ninety- 
 seven years. 8he was born in 1766, and was 
 ten years old at the beginning of the Revol- 
 utionary ^Var, and fifteen years old at its 
 close. At that impressionable age, patriotism 
 
158 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 exerted deep influence on her mind. On the 
 morning when the advance of Lee's army, 
 led by Stonewall Jackson, entered Frederick, 
 every Union flag was lowered and the 
 halyards cut. Every store and dwelling- 
 house was closed. The inhabitants retired 
 indoors, the streets were deserted, and, to 
 quote the official report, the city wore a 
 churchyard aspect. But Barbara Friet- 
 chie, taking one of the Union flags, went up 
 to the top of her house, opened a garret 
 window, and held the banner out. The 
 Southern army marched up the street, saw 
 the flag, and obeyed the order to halt and 
 fire ! A volley was discharged at the win- 
 dow from which the flag was displayed. The 
 staff was partly broken, so that the bunting 
 drooped. The old lady drew it in, broke 
 off the fragment, and taking the stump with 
 the flag attaclied to it in her hand, stretched 
 herself as far out of the window as she could, 
 and waved the Stars and Stripes over the 
 heads of the troops below. In a voice of in- 
 
WIIITTIER. 
 
 159 
 
 dignation, shrill uith age, she called out, 
 * P'ire at this old head, then, boys ; it is not 
 more venerable than your flag.' The soldiers 
 in gray fired no more, but passed on in 
 silence and with downcast looks. She secur- 
 ed the flag in its place, where it waved un- 
 molested during the whole of the occupation 
 of the city. 8he died a few days after the 
 Federal troops entered Frederick, some say 
 from joy, others assert that her death was 
 caused l>y excitement and fatigue : " — 
 
 *' Honour to her ! and let a tear 
 Fall, for licr sake, on Stonewall's bier. 
 
 '* Over Barbara Frietchie's grave 
 Flag of Freedom and Union wave! 
 
 *' Peace and order and beauty draw 
 Round thy symbol of light and law ; 
 
 ^' And ever the stars above look down 
 t)u thy stars below in Frederick town." 
 
 The abolition of slavery and the close of 
 the war left Whittier free to deal with less 
 
IGO 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 aggressive forms of human life and activity. 
 From his muse have come some of the sweet- 
 est pastorals of the time. His stanzas are 
 always simple. They ring with melody and 
 are lavish in fancy, tliough, perhaps, not of 
 the highest order. His art, measured by the 
 canons that one would apply to Tennyson, is 
 crude, but of his naturalness, liis interpreta- 
 tion of rural life and work, his buoyancy of 
 spirit, and vividness in the employment of 
 local colour, nothing can be said in the way 
 of dispraise. Whittier is not a scholar's 
 poet, though learned men may read and en- 
 joy him. He writes for the people, just as 
 Ebenezer Elliott, the corn-law rhymer, wrote, 
 though, it may be said the American poet's 
 work is of superior metal and fmisli. Wliit- 
 tier's pastorals have emphasized in striking 
 terms tlie beauty of local river and stream, 
 liill and valley about Massacliusetts, Maine, 
 and New Hampshire. They are rich in lyr- 
 ical intensity, and readily win the favour of 
 the reader. His masterpiece is undoubtedly 
 
WIIITTIER. 1(5X 
 
 *' Snow-bound." Of that the critics are all 
 agreed. It is a toucJiing story of country 
 experiences in New England, and the fact 
 that it is largely a reminiscence of the poet's 
 own early life lends additional charm and at- 
 tractiveness to tlie narrative. Stedman calls 
 it Whittier's "most complete production, 
 an idyl already pictured for him by the 
 camera of his own heart." John Burrouglis 
 declares it to be "the most faithful picture 
 of our northern winter tliat lias yet been put 
 into poetry," and Underwood says it is "tlie 
 clearest expression of Whittier's .genius. " It 
 is full of heart touches and vivid word- 
 painting. The whole round of daily life, in 
 a farm-house is described. Xot a detail is 
 wanting. The story is picturesque, the in- 
 cident and episode are adroitly managed, the 
 portraiture is true to nature, and, from the 
 first line to the last, the performance is even 
 and perfect. Tliis scene will convey an idea 
 of the poet's manner, in one of liis loftier 
 flights in description :— 
 
1G2 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 ^' The wind blew east : we heard the roar 
 Of ocean on his wintry shore, 
 And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 
 Beat with low rhytiim on inland air. 
 Meanwhile, we did our nightly chores, — 
 Brought in the wood from out of doors, 
 Littered the stalls, an<l from the mows 
 Raked down the herd's grass for the cows ; 
 Heard the horse whinneying for his corn ; 
 And, sharply clashing horn on horn, 
 Impatient down the stanchion rows 
 The cattle shake their walnut bows." 
 
 And this : — 
 
 *' Shut in from all the world without, 
 We sat the clean-winged hearth about. 
 Content to let the north wind roar 
 In baffled rage at pane and door, 
 While the red long before us beat 
 The frost line back with tropic heat ; 
 And, ever, when a louder blast 
 Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
 The merrier up its roaring draught 
 The great throat of the chimney laughed ; 
 The house dog on his paws outspread 
 Laid to the hre his drowsy head; 
 The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
 A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; 
 
WlIITTIEli. 
 
 1G3 
 
 And, for the winter fireside meet, 
 Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
 The mug of cider simmered slow° 
 The apples sputtered in a row, 
 And, close at hand, the basket stood 
 With nuts from brown October's wood." 
 
 The *' Tent on the Beach," which in chro- 
 iiological order follows ** 8now-bound," ia 
 especially interesting onaccount of its strong, 
 local coloring. The scene is laid at Salisbury 
 Beach. The bay, the xMerriniac, and the 
 Isle of Shoals, are all within view. The 
 poet, Bayard Taylor, and James T. Fields, 
 are the principal persowc of the poem. The 
 idea and treatment are simple, and the talk, 
 always exquisitely natural, is of old times. 
 The portraits are thus outlined. Of himself, 
 the poet writes : — 
 
 '^ And one there was, a dreamer born, 
 
 Who, with a mission to fulfil, 
 Had left the muses' haunts to turn 
 
 The crank of an opinion mill. 
 Making his rustic reed of song 
 A weapon in the war with wrono-," 
 
104 
 
 WHITTIEK. 
 
 The one 
 
 " Whose Arab face was tanned 
 By tropic sun and boreal frost ; 
 So travelled there was scarce a land 
 Or people left him to exhaust," 
 
 was Bayard Taylor, poet, traveller, and di- 
 plomatist. 
 
 And this is Fields, the poet's friend, pub- 
 lisher, and adviser. 
 
 '^ One, with beard scarce silvered, bore 
 A ready credence in his looks, 
 A lettered magnate, lording o'er 
 An ever-widening realm of books.'' 
 
 " The Barefoot B3y," is a homely effort 
 wliich made its way into popularity at a 
 bound. Its perfect simplicity is, perhaps, 
 its highest recommendation. The artists 
 took it up. Eastman Johnson painted a 
 lovely picture of the lad with his cheeks of 
 tan and turned-up pantaloons, and the cliro- 
 mo manufacturers sent copies of it broadcast. 
 Prang, the art publisher, produced a very 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
 1G5 
 
 ,nd di- 
 , pub- 
 
 )re 
 
 3." 
 
 effort 
 y at a 
 jrhaps, 
 artists 
 nted a 
 eeks of 
 e chro- 
 adcast. 
 a very 
 
 fine impression of the picture. \Muttier ad- 
 mired it so much that he wrote a most flat- 
 tering opinion of its merits. Some time 
 after this, a wretched imitation of the Pram' 
 *' Study" appeared in the print market, 
 bearing the poet's endorsement. The paltry 
 forgery so disgusted Whittier that he prompt- 
 ly wrote to Prang, saying : '' I have heard of 
 writers who could pass judgment upon works 
 of art without ever seeing them, but the part 
 assigned me by this use of my letter to 
 making me the critic of a tiling not in exis- 
 tence, adds to their ingenuity the gift of 
 prophecy. It seems to be hazardous to praise 
 anything. There is no knowing to what 
 strange uses one's words may be put. When 
 a good deal younger than I am now, I address- 
 ed some laudatory lines to Henry Clay, but 
 the newspapers soon transferred them to 
 Thomas H. Benton, and it was even said 
 that the saints of Nauvoo made them do 
 duty in the apotheosis of the prophet, Jos- 
 eph Smith. My opinions as an art critic arc 
 
IGG 
 
 WHITTIEB. 
 
 „„twtU.uoU to the public, and as they 
 loem to be as unoertam and erratic mthexr 
 
 Actions as an Australian boomerang, I 
 U I think, be chary in future in giving 
 ti dt't thinU I should dare speak 
 V .oftheVenu3deMedici.asImight 
 favourabvoftheve „., to some bar- 
 
 expect to find my words affixed 
 ^ 1 t (l,P bearded woman, 
 
 room lithograph of the beai.i 
 
 i-i »+ " ' Tlie Barefoot 
 Underwood says that 
 
 T, ' i9 clearly autobiographical, and 
 Boy IS clear y ^^ ^^^_^^^g,^ 
 
 tween its sunple Imes we 
 
 ,„agic lenses into the very heart of las clu 
 
 hood." 
 
 WWspering at the garden wall. 
 Talked with me from falUoaU, 
 Mine the sand-nmmed pickerei p 
 M ue the walnut slopes beyond, 
 
 Se,on^-^-S°'r'*""' 
 Apples of Hesperides. 
 
 . Maud Muller," though often faulty j 
 „.etrtillustratesvery well thepoet's method 
 
WIIITTIEU. 
 
 1G7 
 
 xs they 
 a their 
 
 rangi ^ 
 : giving 
 e speak 
 3 1 might 
 ome bar- 
 nan. 
 
 Barefoot 
 and he- 
 ,s through 
 { his chiUV 
 
 ight 
 the night, 
 
 11, 
 
 all, 
 
 el pond, 
 
 id, 
 es. 
 
 in 
 
 en faulty 
 looet's method 
 
 of telling a story in verse. His deep re- 
 ligious feeling is emphasized notably in the 
 ** Brother of Mercy," *' The Gift of Trite- 
 mius," a very powerful poem, *' Barclay of 
 Ury," and '* The Two Rabbis." Two poems 
 have been written by Whittier on " The 
 Sisters," one after a picture by Barry, — 
 musical and tender, — and the other in ballad 
 form, vigorous, and trenching strongly on 
 the dramatic. The latter tells the tragical 
 story of Annie and Rhoda, who lived near 
 the great sea. They awoke one night start 
 led by the sound of roaring waters, and the 
 noise of heavy waves climbing the rocky 
 coast. Annie was gentle and timid. Rhoda 
 was fearless and bold. Annie shuddered at 
 the blast, and cried in fear and agony, but 
 Rhoda ordered her back to bed, and said na 
 good ever came of watching a storm. But 
 Annie still shrank down in terror, for above 
 the din and loud roar of the battling elements, 
 she heard her name called, and nearer and 
 nearer came the cry on the winding blast of 
 
1()8 
 
 WHITTIEll. 
 
 the storm. It was the voice of a drowning 
 man, and Estwick Hall, of the Heron, was 
 out in tlie fury of the tempest, liut Rhoda, 
 who loved Hall of the Heron, said to Annie : 
 
 '' . . . with eyes aliame, 
 Tiiou liest, he would never call thy iianie. 
 
 If he did, 1 would pray the wind and sea, 
 To keep him forever from thee and me." 
 
 Then roared the angry sea again, and an- 
 other blast rode on the gale, and a dying wail 
 reached the strickened ears of the sisters. 
 Hall of the Heron was dead ! 
 
 In Whittier's *' Pennsylvania Pilgrim," 
 life among the Quaker colonists of two hun- 
 dred years ago is depicted with keen direct- 
 ness of purpose. Francis Daniel Pastorius 
 is the hero of the poem. He was a doctor of 
 laws, his alma mater l)eing at Xuremburg. 
 While at Frankfort, he became interested in 
 the teacliings of Spencer, the head of the 
 society of Pietists or Mystics, who in the 
 
WIIITTIER. 
 
 169 
 
 vvniiig 
 , was 
 l/hoda, 
 Uinie : 
 
 name. 
 id sea, 
 
 me. 
 
 '> 
 
 nd an- 
 ig wail 
 dsters. 
 
 inm 
 
 huii- 
 lirect- 
 torius 
 tor of 
 iburg. 
 tod ill 
 of the 
 
 11 the 
 
 seventeenth century revived tlie worship of 
 Taiiler and ihe Friends of God. In 1683, 
 Pastorius crossed the ocean and settled on 
 a tract of land near tlie present city of Pliil- 
 adelphia, which had been purchased from 
 William Penn. He joined the Society of 
 Friends, and became the recognized head and 
 law-giver of the place. He drew up a memo- 
 rial against slave-holding in 1688, which 
 was adopted by the (Jermantown Friends. 
 Whittier says that this was the first protest 
 ever made by a religious body against slavery. 
 The characters in the poem are drawn with 
 critical discrimination, particularly those of 
 Pastorius and his wife Anna, the daughter 
 of Doctor Klosterman, of Mulheim. All that 
 is characteristic of Quakerism, and the zeal 
 and faith of its votaries, are set forth in this 
 tribute with an enthusiasm not frequently 
 encountered even in Whittier's verse. The 
 poet's large Catliolicity is revealed in every 
 line, and no suggestion appears of affecta- 
 tion, narrowness or prejudice. 
 11 
 
170 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 Little need be said of Whittier's prose 
 writings. A portion only of them has been 
 preserved and published. At best his prose 
 was ephemeral. ** Margaret Smith's Journal," 
 a sort of historical novel, or series of charac- 
 ter sketches, is the more important perform- 
 ance of the collection. It deals with the ear- 
 ly history of the colony, and to the antiquary 
 offers much that is entertaining. The author 
 of the journal is supposed to be a Church of 
 England woman, and she treats with candour 
 the x)roblems of 1678. Here and there poems 
 appear, scattered through the narrative, but 
 the quaint manner of the tale is its chiefest 
 quality. Whittier has also written " Old 
 Portraits and Modern Sketclies," " Literary 
 Recreations," and " Miscellanies," but tlieir 
 value is not of much moment. One of his 
 minor essays is devoted to a dissection of 
 Carlyle's *' Latter-day Pamphlets." In this 
 the Sage of Ecclefechan is taken to task for 
 his attitude on tlie slave question. But it is 
 solely as a lyrist that the fame of Whittier 
 
WHITTIEK. 
 
 171 
 
 will live. In this department of poesy he is 
 supreme. He never married. P^or years his 
 constant companion was his sister, Elizabeth, 
 with whom he lived, now at Amesbury and 
 again at Danvers. She, too, was a graceful 
 poet, and in one of her brother's volumes, 
 some of her more striking pieces are included! 
 These are " The Dream of Argyll," "Lily 
 Franklin," and " The Wedding Veil." 
 
 Mr. Whittier's last book, published while 
 he was on his death-bed, is - At Sundown," 
 containing tlie poems written by him, from 
 18S6 to 1892.