DEPARTMENT OF University of Illinois Books are not to be taken from the Library Room. Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue U. of I. Library 14685-S Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/americanliteratu00smyt_0 AMERICAN L I T ERA T URE. ' - AMERICAN LITERATURE. A.B., JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, PROFESSOR OF LITERATURE IN THE PHILADELPHIA CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL PHILADELPHIA: Eldredge & Brother, No. 17 North Seventh Street. ;JV\\ a n ■ su% Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by ELDREDGE & BROTHER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. »o<>o* — — — FERGUSON BROS. & CO., PRINTERS, PHI LADA. WESTCOTT A THOMSON, ELECTROTYPERS, PHILADA. Some distinguished American scholars have objected to the name “American Literature” as meaningless and mis- leading. There would indeed seem to be greater propriety in the title “ English Literature in America,” which defines the origin and relation of our literature, and which has great merit, too, in that it suggests the kindred blood that unites two great nations, and that makes the inhabitants of each common possessors of a common inheritance. I have, how- ever, thought it best not to interfere with a name that has been honored by generations of use, and which now re- ceives prompt and generous recognition from the scholars of Europe. There has been happily awakened in very recent years a great and growing interest in American affairs, and par- ticularly in the history and significance of American writ- ings. Many excellent works have contributed to the com- plete understanding of this literature. Professor Scherr in Germany, Professor Nichol in England, and Professors Tyler and Richardson in America have published skilful and laborious studies of our literary development, which are indispensable to the scholar and invaluable for the reference library, but which are too critical and exhaust- ive for school use. In the present work I have tried to make a book from which teachers can teach, and from which students cannot “ cram.” Its purpose is to exhibit the process of American literature as an evolution. The dependence of this liter- ature upon English literature at successive stages of its history has been suggested, and the growth of the Amer- V Ti n *^r\ VI PREFACE . ican spirit from Colonial polemics and Revolutionary pol- itics to its flowering in the group of classic writers who immediately preceded the Civil War has been followed. American literature prior to 1765, for obvious reasons, has no place in elementary instruction; very few books of Revolutionary times were written with a real literary in- tention. These two periods have therefore been crowded into a few pages, and the main attention of the book directed to the interpretation of the later movement of mind in New England by which literature was set free from the chilling influence of Puritanism. The readings from authors which are appended to the history have been selected as characteristic specimens of the best or most significant writers of the country. They have been chosen also as having a secondary value in illus- trating or emphasizing the historical matter in the fore part of the book. I have not been deterred from inserting a selection because it was old and familiar, nor have I felt compelled to insert one because “ no hand-book would be complete without it.” Brevity is not an outworn virtue in school-books. The bridge need not be much broader than the flood, and even the most ambitious of our schools must limit the time it can devote to the English language and literature, and of that time American books and authors must take their mod- est share. I have to thank Messrs. Harper & Bro., D. Appleton & Co., Mr. Geo. W. Childs, and Mr. E. E. Pratt for allowing me to use some of their copyrighted material. The selections from Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell are used by permission of, and by arrangement with, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Philadelphia, March, 1891. ALBEET H. SMYTH. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Colonial Period 9 CHAPTER II. The Revolutionary Period 24 CHAPTER III. The New York Writers 39 CHAPTER IV. The Awakening of New England 62 CHAPTER V. Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell 101 CHAPTER VI. The Historians 119 CHAPTER VII. Edgar Allan Poe and Other Southern Poets ... 127 CHAPTER VIII. From Cooper to the Civil War 133 CHAPTER IX. After the Civil War 144 Readings 165 AMERICAN LITERATURE. -o-o>Xo CHAPTER I. The Colonial Period. 1607 - 1765 . The History of American Literature comprises the literature that has been produced in America in the Eng- lish language. It began with the first settlement on the Atlantic coast, and is actively going on at this moment. Although we have reason to be proud of the progress of our literature in the past and are hopeful of its future, we must not make the mistake of thinking it to be a new literature, different altogether from that of England. Our literature is a continuation of English literature : it is Eng- lish literature in America. It should never be forgotten that our prose and poetry when at their best are true to the great traditions of English thought and English style. The New Continent. — The great work of American civilization was begun in Virginia in 1607. James the ' First was on the throne of England, and English liter- ature was at its height. Shakespeare was still living, and Bacon had just completed the first sketch of his greatest work, The Novum Organum . American literature was therefore fortunate in the time of its beginning. The 9 10 AMERICAN LITERATURE. language came over just when it was richest and most flexible. The thought of a vast continent, rich and fertile, beyond the ocean, impressed the imagination of English writers. They waited impatiently to hear from the handful of colonists who, by royal permission, had gone to explore and to plant the wilderness. One English poet at this time called Virginia “ Earth’s only Paradise,” and another, Michael Drayton, prophesied the birth of poetry in the new land. The wreck of one of the ships of the early ex- plorers suggested to Shakespeare the plot of The Tempest. The first writings in the new continent were news-letters , hastily composed, and telling to friends at home the strange features and necessary labors of the new land. Our First Century is the period of our literary depend- ence upon England. Our earliest poets did not change their style because they had changed their country, but rather clung with greater affection to the literary habits in which they had been educated. What Lowell wittily said of a much later time is especially true of our first writers : “ They stole Englishmen’s books and thought Englishmen’s thought, With English salt on her tail our wild eagle was caught.” American literature was a sprout from the great parent- trunk in England, and it was detached from a particularly vigorous portion of the trunk. There was little time in our first century for the arts of literature. The energies of the settlers were required to cut down the forest, to cultivate the soil, and to prepare defences against the Indians. To obtain food, clothing, and shelter, to build the homestead, the school-house, and the church, engaged all the efforts and all the time of the colonists. They were on the edge of an unexplored wilderness full of mysterious perils. Not only was the progress of literature impossible be- THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 11 cause of the severe and unceasing toil of the settlers, but it must be remembered that they were men without a country. There was nothing to inspire in them that spirit of national pride and devotion which always finds expres- sion in popular literature. It required a hundred years of unwritten heroism and industry to establish the people securely in their new home. The Colonial Period, or first era of our literary his- tory, may be said to extend from 1607, the date of the first settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, to 1765. The latter date marks the time when a great change came over the fortunes of the English people in America — when those people, aroused to resistance to the foreign authority of Great Britain, and inspired by the passion for liberty, were approaching the struggle of the Revolution. The Revo- lution altered the current of men’s thoughts and set new subjects before the minds of writers. Beginning with the year 1607, it is important to remem- ber the group of English colonies planted along the east- ern edge of the continent during the seventeenth century. They were, in chronological order — Virginia, Massachu- setts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, Pennsylvania. There were remarkable differences between these colonies. They represented different elements of society and of cul- ture. Their founders came hither for different purposes, and for a century the colonies held little intercourse with each other. The most important of the colonies were Vir- ginia and Massachusetts. They are the sources of all that is best and strongest in American history. From the latter we gather almost everything that is valuable in our colonial literature. The writings* of the colonial times, or from 1607 to 1765, have for us only an historic interest. They are important 12 AMERICAN LITERATURE. so far as they illustrate the character of the founders of our nation. But they have not, in themselves, any liter- ary interest or value. They were not written either to interest or amuse. Their authors were too seriously occu- pied with the actual conquest of the soil and the forest, with building homes and repelling the dangers of the wil- derness, to give time to the arts and graces of literature. The works of the first immigrant authors, therefore, whether they are rude descriptions of hardship in Virginia or collections of tedious New England sermons, are curious and interesting precisely as a broken plate that came over the sea in the Mayflower’s cabin, or a battered sword worn by the side of some valiant Pilgrim in Plymouth, and which perchance knocked against the heels of Miles Stand- ish himself, is curious and interesting. The Colonists in Virginia were chiefly of the Royalist party and of the Church of England. They had crossed the ocean to repair their fortunes with the gold which they imagined must abound in tha New W orld. Unlike the Puritans of Massachusetts, they had no quarrel with Eng- land, and no desire nor intention to found a new order of society here. No intensity of feeling nor high resolves determined them to seek an asylum in Virginia. They therefore did not identify themselves permanently with the interests of the country; and the writers among them, unlike those of New England, in most cases after a brief sojourn returned to Europe. For several reasons the Virginian colony was not favor- able to the growth of literature and culture. 1. The people of New England settled in groups of fam- ilies forming centres of rapidly-growing towns and cities ; the “town-meetings” of citizens and the constant inter- course of neighbors resulted in improvements in industry and trade, the increase of schools and churches, and “ facil- ity in the interchange of books, letters, and the like.” The people of Virginia did not found villages, but lived distant THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 13 from each other on large estates. No clusters of houses were to be seen. In Jamestown, the capital, there were only eighteen private dwellings. The natural result was the absence of all co-operation and all progress in trade, education, and civil affairs. The planter, grown rich by the cultivation of tobacco, surrounded himself with his slaves and lived a careless, hospitable life, occupying his leisure with the English sports of fox-hunting, horse-racing, and cock-fighting. 2. Another serious consequence of the wide separation of the settlers in Virginia was the impediment it offered to common education. Schools were rare, and indeed until the year 1688 “ no mention is anywhere made in the records of schools or of any provision for the instruc- tion of youth.” 3. Not only were schools discouraged, but evert print- ing was forbidden. Sir William Berkeley, governor of the colony, said, “ I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years ; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both !” No printing-press was set up permanently in Virginia until 1729. Literature in Virginia. — The earliest writings of Vir- ginia were descriptions of the new and strange things of the country, and of the prosperity or mishaps of the set- tlers, written to satisfy the curiosity of friends in England. These writings, or “ news-letters,” w T ere, in every instance, printed in England. Mingled with them were certain other more scholarly works, such as the translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses , by George Sandys, treasurer of the Virginian colony and son of the archbishop of York. Among the narratives and descriptions of the country were Good News from Virginia , by Alexander Whitaker, published in London in 1613 ; and Leah and Rachel (i. e . 14 AMERICAN LITERATURE . Virginia and Maryland), by John Hammond, published in London in 1656. Books of this character and time can hardly be claimed for our literature. Their authors were Englishmen who happened to be visitors to Virginia, but who printed their books in England, and who, in almost every case, returned thither. Captain John Smith was the first writer to send home an account of the wilderness into which he had journeyed and in which so many adventures befell him. His first book was The Tnie Relation* of Virginia , published in Lon- don in 1608. The Founders of New England landed at Plymouth in December, 1620. Within twenty years the population of the fifty towns of New England numbered twenty-one thousand souls. These people sought a land in which they might be free to think and to worship according to their own conscience. While the Virginians were laying up treasure upon earth, the men of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth were thinking of treasure in heaven. There was among them a number of scholarly men. A considerable proportion of the Pilgrims were college-bred. In the small colony of Massachusetts Bay there were not less than seventy graduates of Cambridge and twenty grad- uates of Oxford. Great importance was attached to education in the new colony. Before 1650 public instruction was compulsory throughout New England. The founders of New England, though stern in their piety, were book-lovers and filled with the enthusiasm for knowledge. The chief trait of our fore- fathers was earnestness. They were serious in all things. Whatever they did in politics, religion, education, or in- dustry was done with prayer and earnest effort. This earn- estness made their lives grave and often cheerless. Gayety * “ Relation ” — that is, account or narrative. THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 15 and beauty were looked upon as things of evil. Their re- ligion was solemn and their God wrathful. Their devotion to their creed and confidence in their faith made them in- tolerant of opposite opinions. They persecuted all who did not believe as they did. They drove Roger Williams out into the wilderness to find a home in Rhode Island. They tortured old women whom they believed to be witches, and inflicted the severest punishments for trifling offences. There was no charm nor beauty in their austere lives. The American Colleges. — In 1636 the Puritans of Mas- sachusetts founded a college at Cambridge. It was called Harvard, after a young Charlestown clergyman who be- queathed to the “school ” eight hundred pounds in money and a considerable library. Nothing could illustrate more powerfully the high value set upon learning by our Puritan ancestors than this establishment of a college so soon after the first landing on these shores. The intelligence and the public spirit of the founders of our nation and of our literature are alike justified by it. 1. Harvard College was intended to teach the classical languages and Hebrew, and to train learned men for the service of the Church. It soon made its reputation on both sides of the ocean. It has been the school of the largest number of American writers. Throughout Colonial and Revolutionary times, and in dark days of our history, it has impressed upon the youth of the country how excel- lent a thing knowledge is. 2. Before the Pilgrims landed, in 1619, and again in 1622, the Virginians submitted proposals to England for the establishment of a university. That it might be safe from the ravages of Indians, it was proposed to build the college on an island in the Susquehanna River. But no institution of learning was actually established in Virginia until the close of the century. Then, in 1693, the College of William and Mary was founded. It is a significant fact that the first and last battle-fields of 16 AMERICAN LITERATURE. the Revolution were in the immediate neighborhood of these two colleges of Massachusetts and Virginia. There, where our patriots, soldiers, and statesmen had been educated, the war began and ended. It began on Bunker Hill, and Cornwallis surrendered in the vicinity of Williamsburg, the seat of the Virginian college. Among the distinguished students of William and Mary were Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, President of the Continental Congress of 1774, President James Mon- roe, Judge Blair of the Supreme Court, and several of the governors of Virginia and Maryland. 3. In 1700, Yale College was founded at New Haven, Connecticut, and from it, in the eighteenth century, came the most eminent thinker of colonial times, Jonathan Ed- wards. 4. The College of New Jersey dates from 1746; Co- lumbia College (New York), from 1754; the University of Pennsylvania, from 1755; and Brown University (Rhode Island), from 1764. The first Printing-Press was set up at Cambridge, Mass., in 1639. The first book printed on it was the Bay Psalm- book (1640), a collection of versified psalms of the most wretched character. It was partly compiled by Bishop Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians and translator of the Bible into the Indian tongue. The Literature of New England was, throughout the Colonial period, of a religious character. The only ques- tions of general interest were questions of theology. The writers of books and pamphlets were men who had fought for their religious opinions. They had exiled themselves that they might be free to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. Naturally, the first pub- lications were in defence of their creed. Their only literary object was to explain divine truth as they perceived it. Re- ligious books and pamphlets therefore form the great bulk of the publications of the Colonial period of Literature. THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 17 b’or instance, between the years 1706 and 1718 “ all the pub- lications known to have been printed in America number at least five hundred and fifty. Of these all but eighty-four were on religious topics, and of the eighty-four, forty-nine were almanacs.” Besides sermons, religious discourses, pious tracts, etc., there were a few historical writings , or, more correctly, diaries of contemporary events. William Bradford (1588-1657), an important writer of the latter class, was the second governor of Plymouth Colony. He held that office almost every year from 1621 until 1657, when he died. His principal book, and the chief historical writing of early New England, was the His- tory of Plymouth Plantation . It was left unpublished. The manuscript passed through several hands, and was at last placed in the library of Old South Church, Boston. When the British occupied Boston the library was plundered, and Bradford’s History disappeared. In 1855 it was found in the library of the bishop of London. Other Historical Writers. — Of equal literary worth with Bradford’s history, and of perhaps still more histori- cal value, is the History of New England from 1630 to 1649, by John Winthrop (1588-1649), governor of Massachu- setts Bay. Thomas Morton (1575-1646), an adventurer, vexed the pious people of Massachusetts by establishing a boisterous crew of merry-makers at Mount Wollaston, now Braintree, Mass. This settlement, so offensive to the Puritans, he called “ Merry Mount,” and there he raised a May-pole and instituted the gay sports of Old England. Morton was charged with teaching Indians the use of fire-arms. He was arrested by Captain Miles Standish and sent to Eng- land. In 1637 he published The New England Canaan , full of ridicule of the Puritan faith and manners. He returned to Massachusetts, and was imprisoned for his unpardonable literary “scandal.” 2 18 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Nathaniel Ward (1579-1652), a minister of culture and experience, published in 1647, in London, one of the most curious books written in the colonies. It was called The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam (Essex). It was a sharp satire on the new opinions that were then rife in both Old and New England — a truly vigorous polemic directed against long hair and female frivolity. All these books, however, are mere literary curiosities. They are not easily found by the general reader, and are hard enough reading when found. They are far more important in that they contain legends or facts that have been built up by more modern authors into romances, poems, and histories of enchanting interest. Thus, out of the dull materials of the books just mentioned Motley wrote his novel Merry Mount , and Hawthorne his May-pole of Merry Mount; Longfellow his New England Tragedies , and Whittier his John Underhill and the Familist's Hymn . Two Colonial Poets. — In the bleak atmosphere of Puritanism flourished two writers of what, in the seven- teenth century, passed for verse among the people of New England. They were Anne Bradstreet (1612-72) and Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1715). The former wrote a dull poem to which she gave the following portentous title : Several Poems compiled with great Variety of Wit and Learn- ing , full of Delight , wherein especially is contained a Complete Discourse and Description of the Four Elements , Constitutions, Ages of Men , Seasons of the Year , together with an exact Epitome of the Three First Monarchies , viz., the Assyrian, Persian , and Grecian , and the beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the end of their last King ; ivith divers other Pleasant and serious Poems , by a Gentlewoman of New England {Boston, 1640). Wiggleswortli wrote the Day of Doom, a pitiful and pain- ful attempt at poetry. It is a rhymed version of the Pu- ritan doctrine of future punishment. Cotton Mather (1663-1728). — The greatest men of America during the colonial period were Cotton Mather, THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 19 Jonathan Edwards, and Benjamin Franklin. Mather was an industrious writer. He was the author of more than four hundred different works. He was one of a dis- tinguished family of clergymen who for three generations had furnished the Puritan pulpit with men of learning. He was born in Boston, February 12, 1663, and entered Harvard College when only eleven years old. He gathered the largest collection of books in America, and became, without doubt, the most learned man in the colonies. “ To preach seventy sermons in public, forty more in private, keep thirty vigils and sixty fasts, and still have time for persecuting witches, was nothing unusual for him to do in a year.” His most celebrated book was the Magnalia Christi Amer- icana , or “ great things done by Christ for the American people.” It is the ecclesiastical history of New England from 1620. Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) was the greatest of all New England thinkers. More than that, he was perhaps the clearest reasoner America has yet produced. He was born in East Windsor, Conn., in 1703, was graduated at Yale College in 1720, was pastor of a church at Northamp- ton, Mass., from 1726 until 1750, and died president of Princeton College in 1758. His principal book is entitled Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will (1754.) All his acute logic was employed in the service of that system of the- ology which has taken its name from John Calvin. Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) was the first and the only man of letters in colonial times to achieve European renown. He brought America prominently before the minds of the Old World, and commanded respect for his country and admiration for himself. He was born in Bos- ton January 17, 1706. His father was a tallow-chandler, nnd his mother a daughter of Peter Folger, who in his day had some reputation as a writer. Franklin was appren- ticed to his brother, who was a printer, but ran away and 20 AMERICAN LITERATURE. went to Philadelphia in 1723. The description of his entry into Philadelphia, which was to be the scene of his busy labors for more than sixty years, forms the most amusing portion of his Autobiography. Among all the great men in our history who have risen from humble origin to great fame none have achieved greatness in so many ways as Benjamin Franklin. He was a shrewd, practical man of the world, the very embodiment of the common sense of the country. His character and career are far enough away from the stern religious men we have been considering. Franklin’s mind was attentive to trifles, his philosophy never got beyond the homely maxims of worldly prudence, and yet in the great crisis of the Revolution his discernment and sagacity proclaimed him a statesman of equal acumen with the leaders of European thought. Franklin’s enormous versatility is the feature of his life ; he was fertile and successful in science, diplomacy, philan- thropy, and literature. His invention of the stove and the lightning-rod, his papers on electricity and the Gulf Stream, attest the service he rendered to the cause of science. The University of Ox- ford and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland recog- nized the value of his scientific work when they conferred upon him the degree of doctor of philosophy. He signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance, the Treaty of Peace, and the Constitution of the United States. All manner of public reforms were suggested by him : he mended and cleaned streets, organized the police and fire departments, reconstructed the postal system, and founded hospitals. The Philadelphia Library is his, the University of Pennsylvania was started by him, and the American Philosophical Society owes to him its origin. His Literary Career. — In spite of the multitude of his writings, Franklin is not an important literary character. THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 21 American literature in his time had not yet begun. He had no ambition for literary fame. His language was terse and simple, his style often careless and in bad taste ; but there was no affectation, no display of learning nor posing for applause. The author carried the simplicity of his life into his writings. Practical sense and homely wit charac- terize all his subjects. The most prominent, and by very much the best-written of his works, are the Autobiography , Father Abraham’s Speech , and Poor Richard’s Almanac . An almanac in those days was an indispensable book in every household. It hung by the fireplace ready for consultation or for memoranda. It became the account-book of the fam- ily; the margins of its pages would often be crowded with labored calculations and mnemonic notes. We have al- ready seen that in the first twelve years of Franklin’s life forty-nine of the eighty-four non-religious books printed in the colonies were almanacs. Their information was upon the crops, the weather, and the roads. In 1732, Franklin published the masterpiece among almanacs. It was the Poor Richard Almanac just quoted. Its characteristic feat- ure was its crisp proverbs full of kitchen wisdom, the duty of industry, and the making of money. For instance: “ God helps them that help themselves;” “ Keep thy shop, 'and thy shop will keep thee;” “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise ; ” “ Little strokes fell great oaks ;” “ Three removes are as bad as a fire;” “ Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them;” “ It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.” Franklin’s Autobiography has always been a de- servedly popular book. No more uniformly interesting and successful autobiography was ever written. Fifty edi- tions of it in this country alone testify to the popular ap- preciation of it. It is a book whose fame is assured, and as a piece of literature it has been pronounced equal to the permanently interesting and popular Robinson Crusoe . The edition by John Bigelow is the only one which retains 22 AMERICAN LITERATURE. the old spelling and gives the story exactly as Franklin wrote it. Franklin’s practical sayings have become part of the wisdom of the people, and are everywhere familiar. His name, like that of Washington Irving, has been given to towns, boroughs, streets, societies, and corporations. Gen- eral Washington alone among Americans is so intimately and universally known by all classes of people. Newspapers. — The first newspaper published in Amer- ca was Public Occurrences , in 1690. But it was intended to appear monthly — was therefore more of a pamphlet than a paper — and was quickly suppressed by the General Court. The Boston News-Letter, the second newspaper of the col- onies, was first printed in Boston by John Campbell, post- master of the town, on the 17th of April, 1704. In 1719 the Boston Gazette was established by the new postmaster, and was printed by James Franklin. One day later the American Weekly Mercury appeared in Phila- delphia. James Franklin himself founded the fifth news- paper, the New England Courant , in 1721, to which Benja- min Franklin contributed his earliest compositions. Be- fore the close of the year 1765, which we have taken as the boundary of the colonial period, there had been established in all the American colonies at least forty-three news- papers, eleven of which belonged to Massachusetts, five to Pennsylvania, eight to New York, and one to Virginia. The First Literary Journal was founded by Franklin in Philadelphia in 1741. It was called The General Maga- zine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Provinces in America . It lasted but six months, has but little liter- ary value, but is interesting because, with Andrew Brad- ford’s American Magazine , published at the same time, it marks the earliest effort to establish the monthly magazine or literary journal in America. Isolation of the Colonies.— The most important fact to be remembered in a study of the first period of our history THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 23 * is the tendency in each colony to isolation from its neighbors. There was very little communication between the colonies. Each had its own laws, money, and social customs. Nat- urally, therefore, the Cavaliers of Virginia continued to think and write in a different vein from the Roundheads of New England, and the Quakers of Pennsylvania had nothing in common with either. CHAPTER II. The Revolutionary Period. 1765 - 1809 . The New Era. — About the middle of the eighteenth century certain changes were manifested in the character of the American people. New subjects were thought upon, and the old Puritan earnestness was directed from religion to politics. The colonies also drew closer together, and made common cause against foreign injustice. The Revo- lutionary War and the causes which led to it created a new interest in literature, as well as an excitement in politics. It is hard to say just when the new period began. The war-clouds had been gathering for years before the “ em- battled farmers ” at Concord “ fired the shot heard round the world.” All great movements in history progress slowly, and are almost imperceptible in their earliest stages. It is not possible to say on what day spring be- gins, nor in what year a new epoch in history commences. But it is convenient to take the critical year 1765, in which Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act as subversive of British and American liberty, and in which the first Colonial Congress met in New York, as the starting-point of the second great period in the history of our American writings. It was not until the end of this period, and until well on in the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury, that literature began to be cultivated for its own 24 THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD . 25 feake, and fha,t really important men of letters arose in this country. The writings of ihe Revolutionary times are chiefly important fron^ their historical character and connections. Few of tfrem have ai^y considerable literary value. The character of the colonial perio'd was theological ; the character of the Revolutionary period was political. The productions of the colonial period were theological contro- versies; the productions of the Revolutionary period were political pamphlets. In the second period, therefore, poli- tics replaced polemics, and passion took the place of argu- ment. Literature gave voice to vigorous denunciation of tyranny, and cherished with enthusiasm the love of lib- erty. All the forcible public documents of the age of Rev- olution breathe a spirit of self-reliance. New France or New England? — That was the ques- tion upon the answer to which, in the eighteenth century, depended the destiny of America and the existence of our literature. Two great European powers, France and Eng- land, began to occupy the New W orld about the same time, and between them inevitably arose a struggle for the pos- session of this continent. In 1607, England successfully lodged a handful of colonists at Jamestown ; in 1608, France made a successful settlement at Quebec. These two nations represented different historic ideas and crossed the ocean for different purposes. The English have always been a diligent and successful colonizing people. Their object in America was to colonize — to build cities, to estab- lish communities, to advance trade and education. The French have never been an active colonizing people. Their object in America was to conquer — to build forts, to win converts to religion, and to establish an empire. Throughout the North and North-west the daring explor- ers, the fearless soldiers, the cultivated leaders, and the enthusiastic priests of France extended the power of their country, penetrated the wilderness, adventured on the great 26 AMERICAN LITERATURE. rivers and the great lakes, and opened up the vast unknown territory of a savage country. The Valley of the Missis- sippi they named Louisiana, after their king, Louis XIV. They founded Mobile (1702) and New Orleans (1714), and connected these extreme Southern posts with remote Quebec by means of a great chain of forts. The armed power of king and noble began then to menace the exist- ence of the English colonies, whose isolated settlements lay, a narrow fringe of civilization between the wilderness and the deep sea, along the extreme eastern edge of the conti- nent. The fear of French aggression first suggested to the minds of the English colonists the idea of union. In 1722, and again in 1754, plans for united action were devised and discussed. In the latter year the Albany Plan of Union was conceived, which was, however, rejected by the colonies. The evolution of the idea of confederation or union was the first step toward national history and national literature. Had France and her savage allies been successful in the French and Indian wars, all freedom of thought and speech would have been suppressed, and a despotic, feudal gov- ernment would have been firmly fastened upon America. The triumph of England meant the security of liberty, the extension of commerce, and the natural development of the country. In 1759, General Wolfe captured Quebec. The question of a century and a half was answered. The New World was New England, not New France. “ The gigantic ambi- tion of France, striving to grasp a continent,” had failed. The Puritan commonwealth, vitalized by pure ideas of lib- erty and justice, industrious in labor, and zealous in duty, was free to plant, to trade, to build, and to work toward the inauguration of a great nation. First Republican Ideas. — The idea of union had been born in the struggle with France, and that struggle had also educated some of the shrewd minds of the colonies in THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD . 27 knowledge of affairs of state. The caprice and the indif- ference of the home government had developed with extra- ordinary efficiency the idea of self-reliance in the colonists. The meeting at Albany to devise a plan of union was there- fore naturally followed in eleven years (or in 1765) by a much more important convention at New York, the first Colonial Congress, to protest against the Stamp Act; at which the ideas of union and of self-reliance or independ- ence were asserted against England itself. It was a deci- sive step, and the Revolution in all its grim earnestness was not far off. The Revolution. — The story of the Revolutionary War belongs to history, not to literature. It was attended by a certain amount of excited debate and impassioned decla- mation, and it left the newborn nation so exhausted by the eight years’ struggle that twenty-six years elapsed after its close before the first American man of letters, Washington Irving, appeared with an American book. When, however, the tumult of the Revolution subsided, certain definite political ideas had gained national expression, and the various voices of the original colonies, of Cavalier and Puritan, Quaker and Huguenot and Catholic, had com- bined in one unmistakable accent. Our political literature of the period began with the co- pious and splendid speeches of the great orators, and ended with the judicial arguments of the formulators of the Con- stitution. The period was not without its poetry, its sat- ire, and its wit, but all its literary products closely followed the style of English works. The Orators. — Periods of revolution are always pro- ductive of persuasive orators. The French Revolution was represented by a host of brilliant speakers, and the first fervent utterances of liberty in this country came from a group of eloquent orators in both the North and the South. Prominent among them were Samuel Adams, (1722-1803) ; James Otis (1725-83), Josiah Quincy (1744-75), and Pat- 28 AMERICAN LITERATURE . rick Henry (1736-99). The animated themes of the clos- ing years of the eighteenth century were discussed with force and fiery passion by these men. The effect of their addresses was intense, but more from the earnestness and power with which they were delivered than from any particular merit in the writing. They show, on calmer reading, the faults of hurried composition, unregulated by reason or logical analysis. The great speeches of Patrick Henry, particularly his famous one before the Virginia convention of 1775, have been repeated until their words are as familiar in our memories as the clauses of the Dec- laration of Independence itself. But his addresses, like those of Adams and Quincy, owe their reputation largely to tradition, and in many cases the very words of the orig- inal speeches have been forgotten, and have been supplied by later writers. William Wirt, the biographer of Henry, probably wrote a considerable part of the thrilling address to the convention of Delegates in 1775, and it is well known that the most popular of Otis’s speeches was written by Lydia Maria Child, and is to be found in her novel, The Rebels . The Spirit of ’76. — At midnight of the 18th of April, 1775, Paul Revere raised the “cry of alarm to every Mid- dlesex village and farm,” and at seven o’clock on the fol- lowing morning eight hundred British soldiers bound for Concord found themselves confronted by the minutemen, the “ embattled farmers.” Rev. William Emerson, the grandfather of the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, advised his people to “ stand their ground.” Longfellow has told in “ Paul Revere’s Ride ” the story of the Revolutionary rising, and Emerson, in his “ Hymn on the Dedication of the Concord Monument,” has told of the firing of the shot heard round the world. In 1776 Thomas Paine wrote, in the Crisis , “ These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sun- shine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 29 his country ; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” This soul-trying crisis is the heroic age of our history. It disciplined every fac- ulty of mind and summoned up every energy. It taught ‘ heroism, faithfulness, steadfastness. It produced import- ant political documents, but was necessarily barren of all purely literary compositions. Thomas Paine. — The Crisis , the first words of which have just been quoted, and which appeared at irregular in- tervals during the Revolution, was the work of Paine, and exercised a considerable influence upon the fortunes of the war. The first number appeared during the winter of 1776, and was read by order of General Washington to all the American troops. Undoubtedly, the stirring words and patriotic fervor of the author went far to preserve the courage and discipline of the army. Paine was born in Norfolk, England, in 1737, and died in New York in 1809. He came to America in 1774 with introductory letters from Franklin. His principal literary works are three in number. Common Sense , published in 1776, argued in simple language for the complete inde- pendence of the colonies. The Rights of Man appeared in 1791 ; it was a reply to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution , and was the most popular political work in France and England that has ever been published. The last of Paine’s books, The Age of Reason , was partly written while the author was imprisoned in France by order of the Revolutionists, whom he had offended. It was a vulgar attack upon the Bible. But its abusiveness and scurrility ought not to blind us to the great services which Paine rendered to the cause of American liberty. The Makers of the Nation. — The American people were made into a nation by the adoption of the Consti- tution of 1789. The men who conceived the plan of that Constitution, and thereby created the National Govern- ment, are the real makers of the nation. Prominent among 30 AMERICAN LITERATURE. them were Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Mad- ison, George Washington, John Adams, Fisher Ames, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Joseph Story. The formal cessation of hostilities after the surrender of Cornwallis was on the 19th of April, 1783, on the eighth anniversary of the conflict at Concord. As soon as Paine heard that the preliminary negotiations for a treaty of peace had been concluded, he published the final num- ber of the Crisis , in which, reverting to the now famous words with which he had begun its publication seven years before, he said, “ The times that tried men’s souls are over.” But the security of the nation was not determined by the peace over which Paine and the patriots exulted. On the contrary, the next six years, from 1783 to 1789, were the most critical in all our history. The destinies of the country were shaped and the great federal nation was formed by the men whose discussions produced the Consti- tution under which we live. Thomas Jefferson by writing the Declaration of Inde- pendence became the author of the most famous political document in history. He prepared the way for the expan- sion of America by purchasing Louisiana from the French. He founded the University of Virginia and made liberal provision for the complete study of English literature. The statute for religious liberty in Virginia emanated from him. His Notes on Virginia display considerable literary finish and at times a fine sense of style. This ardent Dem- ocrat and Anti-federalist received his earliest instruction at William and Mary College, and was one of the best edu- cated of American statesmen. He was born in Shadwell, Albemarle county, Virginia, April 2, 1743, and died at Monticello in the same county on the Fourth of July, 1826, just fifty years after the Declaration of Independence: John Adams died upon the same day. The Constitution. — “As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from pro- THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 31 I gressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.” These are the famous words in which Mr. Gladstone described the work of the makers of the nation. Never before had a written constitution been produced of such uniform excellence, so wisely adapted to the needs and circumstances of the people, and withal so admirable as a literary performance both in pre- cision and simplicity. The Federal convention which framed this political mas- terpiece consisted of fifty-five members, twenty-nine of them university-men. It was “ an assembly of demigods,” said Jefferson. In the discussion over the Constitution arose the two great political parties which absorbed the various local parties of the States. Those who supported the new Constitution were Federalists; their opponents were called Anti-federalists. The national issue gave rise to endless controversy which expressed itself in number- less pamphlets, caricatures, satires, and heated arguments. The Federalist is the chief work of the Revolutionary pe- riod. It is not surpassed by any similar essay on govern- ment in the world’s literature. It is “ undoubtedly the most profound and suggestive treatise on government that has ever been written ” [Fiske]. The Federalist was a series of papers addressed to the people of New York urg- ing them to adopt the Constitution, and to that end ex- plaining in simple and incisive language its meaning and practical working. The plan originated with Alexander Hamilton, and the essays were written by Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. They were published in the Independent Gazetteer , a semi-weekly journal of New York, over the signature “ Publius.” There were in all eighty-five papers, Hamilton writing fifty-one, Madison twenty-nine, and Jay five. Alexander Hamilton wrote the first number of the Federalist in the cabin of a sloop on the Hudson River, in 32 AMERICAN LITERATURE . October, 1787. It is upon these essays and their masterly interpretation of the fundamental principles of government that the literary fame of Hamilton depends. His other services to the country, however, were of great import- ance. He was Secretary of the Treasury, and of him Web- ster said, “ He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet.” Among his important writings are letters and opin- ions on a national banking system. Hamilton was un- doubtedly the wisest and most brilliant of American states- men. He was born in the island of Nevis, West Indies, January 11, 1757, and was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr July 12, 1804. Other Folitical Writers. — Fisher Ames (1758-1808) wrote several political papers under the pen-names of Bru- tus and Camillus. He was more careful of his literary style than were any of his contemporaries, and illuminated his speeches and his essays with picturesque descriptions and well-chosen figures. His rich imagination loaded his style with fanciful ornament. For example, in describing the nations of the European continent he writes : “ Com- merce has not a single ship ; arts and manufactures exist in ruins and memory only ; credit is a spectre that haunts its burying-place ; justice has fallen on its own sword; and liberty, after being sold to Ishmaelites, is stripped of its bloody garments to disguise its robbers.” Chief-Justice John Marshall (1755-1835) wrote the Life of Washington , and strengthened the Constitution by his clear legal decisions. William Wirt (1772-1834), a native of Maryland, was appointed attorney-general of the United States in 1817. His fame was great as a lawyer and public speaker. The passage in his speech upon the trial of Burr in which he described the home of Blennerhasset is still quoted and admired. His earliest work was The British Spy (1803). It THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 33 contains a number of florid and at times vivid accounts of orators and oratory. Its best essay is upon “ The Blind Preacher” (James Waddel). The Old Bachelor (1812) in- cludes several essays upon Virginia, the fine arts, etc., writ- ten in the style of the Spectator . Wirt also wrote The Life of Patrick Henry (1817). Joseph Story was born in Marblehead, Mass., Septem- ber 18, 1779, and died in Cambridge, Mass., September 10, 1845. He began the practice of law in Salem, Mass. In 1811 he was appointed by President Madison an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was the first professor of law in the Dane Law School at Harvard. In spite of his busy life as teacher and as judge, he found time to write more text-books on jurisprudence than any other writer of his time. Among his best works are Com- mentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833) ; Com- mentaries on the Conflict of Laws (1834), Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence (1835), Law of Partnership (1841), Law of Bills of Exchange (1843), Law of Promissory Notes (1845). His son, William Wetmore Story (1819 ), is a poet and artist, now living in Italy. He has published Roba di Roma ; or , Walks and Talks about Rome (1862), Tragedy of Nero (1875), Castle St. Angelo (1877), He and She ; or , A Poet's Portfolio (1883). Poets of the Revolution. — Among all the passionate and argumentative writing of the time rose a poetry which devoted itself to the glory of the patriot cause and the ridi- cule of the Tories. This new poetic spirit is best repre- sented by three men — John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, and Philip Freneau [pronounced Fre'no']. Born within a few years of each other, Trumbull in 1750, Barlow in 1754, and Freneau in 1752, they began to write at the begin- ning of the Revolution, and all lived beyond the century and saw the successful result of the struggle in which they had done so much to assist. 3 34 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Trumbull's major poem was McFingal , the most popular of the Revolutionary period, and the most important in our literature prior to 1800. Numerous editions of it were necessary in this country, and it was several times re- printed in England. Its popularity was deserved, for its English is at times quite as good as that of its great model, Hudibras .* Its only rival among the political satires of our own country is The Biglow Papers of James Russell Lowell. The first canto of the poem was written in 1775 upon the events of the campaign of that year, and pub- lished in Philadelphia. The complete poem, in four cantos, was revised at the close of the war, and published at Hartford in 1782. McFingal, who takes his name from the Scotch hero of the Ossian poems, represents the Tory party. Honorius is the champion of the Whigs. The greater part of the book is an animated controversy between the two party-lead- ers, ending in a free fight about the liberty-pole. McFin- gal is tarred and feathered, and escapes the mob by break- ing from a window and flying to the camp of General Gage at Boston. The American spirit which everywhere pene- trates and permeates the poem lends an original flavor to the verses, which in literary form are close imitations of Butler’s Hudibras. Barlow's most pretentious work was the colossal Colum- biad (1807). It is unspeakably dull and altogether un- readable. The plan of the huge epic is very simple. Hes- per releases Columbus from his Spanish prison and trans- ports him to a mountain-summit commanding a royal vision of the vast dimensions of America. It is not a bird’s- eye view which is vouchsafed to Columbus and the reader, but the eye-stroke of a phoenix which encompasses the geography of the continent and the history of “ Columbia.” The conquest of Mexico, the ancient civilization of Peru, ^Hudibras , a mock-epic written by Samuel Butler in England, in 1663-64, in ridicule of the Puritans. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 35 the plantation of the English colonies in North America, the French War, the Revolution, — all wind slow and stately through the interminable pages of this monstrous epic. The artificial style, the showy rhetoric, and cheap imagery of the poem are derived from servile imitation of the glit- tering versifiers of the Queen Anne age. Satire is the most potent instrument of political crises, and all the poets of the Revolution were adroit and suc- cessful in their use of it. Although Barlow’s failure was complete in attempting a serious epic, his success was quite genuine when in 1793 he composed a mock-heroic poem entitled Hasty Pudding. It is a clever work, abounding in the peculiar American humor which appeared early in the history of the colonies, but established its traits in literature during the Revolution. Barlow died of exposure in 1812 in Poland, having become involved in the retreat of Napoleon’s army from Moscow. Freneau was the most skilful of the Revolutionary versifiers. His patriotic rhymes are as weak and empty as those of his contemporaries, but he treated other themes with a graceful beauty that lifts him out of the common cry of rhymsters and gives him a distinctly different place in the history of American letters. A finer sense of propriety in style is at once discernible in “ The Indian Burying-Ground ” and the “ Wild Honey- suckle.” Freneau was the first writer to detect the ele- ments of romance that resided in the picturesque savage of America, and in a few of his best poems anticipated, in slight measure, the great achievements of Cooper and Longfellow. The Hartford Wits. — It is not a little curiou s that the majority of the poets of the Revoli Connecticut and graduates of Yi and Barlow were of that State ing been born in New York and 36 American literature. the College of New Jersey. The close of the war found Hartford, Conn., the capital city of American poetry. The greatest of the colonial students of Yale, it will be remem- bered, was Jonathan Edwards. His grandson^ Timothy Dwight, born in 1752, was president of Yale from 1795 to 1817, and published in 1785 at Hartford The Conquest of Canaan , a poem in eleven books, which he had written eleven years before. It was a faithful imitation of the pop- ular English style, composed in ten-syllabled verses rhym- ing in pairs. It is in the highest degree artificial and mo- notonous, perhaps as prosy and as dull as the Columbiad itself. A better product of Dwight’s muse was Greenfield Hill , a pretty account of the author’s own Connecticut vil- lage. It was Dwight’s son, Theodore, who was a central figure in the group of wits and brilliant thinkers who directly after the war, made Hartford a successful rival of Boston and Philadelphia for literary honors. The other stars of the constellation, “ The Pleiades of Connecticut,” were Trumbull, Barlow, David Humphreys, Richard Alsop, Lemuel Hopkins, and Elihu Smith. In the great and bitter controversy which raged over the adoption of the Constitution the Hartford Wits supported the Federalist party with all their energy and skill. The Anarchiad was a series of sharply -pointed poems published by the wits in the Nevj Haven Gazette. The anarchy of the time immediately before the adoption of the Constitution was keenly satirized and happily amended by these vigor- ous political papers, which, according to their authors, were extracts from an old book on the “ Restoration of Chaos and Substantial Night.” The Echo and the Political Green House were somewhat similar publications of the same minds. Ballad- Writers. — Many of the sprightly ballads of the Revolution have completely disappeared, many are buried in the pages of forgotten newspapers ; some, which were vended on the streets, as Benjamin Franklin sold his, re- THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD . 37 main in libraries and museums as historical curiosities in- teresting to the antiquary, but bare of all literary merit. “ Yankee Doodle ” came into vogue in this period. Francis Hopkinson composed a humorous ballad on the famous “ Battle of the Kegs,” commemorating the unique episode in the campaign at Philadelphia. It was his son Joseph who wrote the universally-known song “ Hail Columbia.” Other ballads were “Free America,” “ The Fate of Bur- goyne,” “ Wyoming Massacre,” “ Jack Bray,” and “ Bold Hawthorne.” The Progress of Style. — When the spirit of poetry passed from Connecticut it reappeared in the nineteenth century in New York and in Boston. During the two pre- ceding centuries the subjects of poetry were occasionally original, but the style was always imitative. The writers who pleased the colonies chose English subjects, and wrote upon them as Englishmen would. Those who interested the Revolutionists also imitated the style of English writers, but preferred to select subjects of local American interest, and often succeeded in investing them with not a little of the native American spirit. The most successful and most thoughtful of the writers of the latter part of the eigh- teenth century did not dream of asserting their literary independence of the Old World and instituting new forms of poetry or prose. Philip Freneau said of the English writers who sneered at their fellow-craftsmen in America, “They are, however, excusable in treating the American authors as inferiors, a political and a literary independence of their nation being two very different things ; the first was accomplished in about seven years, the latter will not be completely effected perhaps in as many centuries.” Fisher Ames declared in 1801 that it was quite impossible that there should ever be a national literature in America. The English people had gone through, in the two cen- turies during which America had been growing up to large and capable national life, the most momentous literary 38 AMERICAN LITERATURE. changes in their history. In 1600 they were at the height of their greatest period, the Elizabethan, and the language underwent a process of rapid evolution to meet the neces- sities of the hour and to express the national pride, the lofty thoughts, the high aspirations of the revival of learning. Toward the close of the century the literature declined from the heights it had reached under Queen, Elizabeth. Seeking after a more quiet style and more simple beauty, literature became affected and artificial and clothed itself in mannerisms. The classical style of Queen Anne was cre- ated. And it in turn was converted in the latter half of the eighteenth century into the romantic style, which has obtained throughout the present century. The earliest English writers in America perpetuated the traditions of the Elizabethan age, and our colonial books therefore are full of the vigorous, vivid, figurative language of the time of Shakespeare. The selection from Cotton Mather on literary style * suggests the transition to the Queen- Anne manner. The learned mastodon of Boston protests against the decay of the “ massy style ” in which he had been in- structed. The quotation from Franklin f illustrates the new style which supervened upon the massive structure of the Elizabethans. The Revolutionist poets found their models in the writers that clustered round the court of Queen Anne and the person of Alexander Pope. The re- sult was a bare, meagre poetry, redeemed only by racy humor and unmistakable earnestness of purpose. The first dawn of the new day was in New York. On the threshold of the nineteenth century, before its first decade is completed, we confront our first man of letters, the first finished artist who upon this continent lived for literature and compelled the attention of European culture. * See page 167. f See page 168. CHAPTER III. The New York Writers. 1809 - 1832 . Washington Irving (1783-1859). — “ Thirty years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon trip- ping with an elastic step along Broadway, with low-quar- tered shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak, a short garment that hung from the shoulders like the cape of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery, old-school air in his appear- ance which was undeniably Dutch and most harmonious with the associations of his writings.” In these words George William Curtis has described our first American author, “in his habit as he lived.” Washington Irving, while by no means the greatest or most important of our writers, does, without doubt, deserve the honorable and imposing title of Father of American Literature. Jonathan Edwards for his logic, and Franklin for his political sagacity, had been admired in Europe, but in Washington Irving was for the first time recognized an American writer of rare genius and unquestionable lite- rary skill. His imagination played upon the homely sub- jects of our new and rude country, and invested them with the grace and glamour of romance. He won the admiration of England’s most severe critics by the purity and perfection of his style. From him our literature dates, for before him no American (with the exception of 39 40 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Charles Brockden Brown) had lived for literature, had cultivated it for its own sake, and acknowledged no ulterior purpose, political or polemical. Irving himself wrote : “ It has been a matter of marvel to my European readers that a man from the wilds of America should express himself in tolerable English. I was looked upon as something new and strange in lite- rature — a kind of demi-savage with a feather in his hand, instead of on his head, and there was a curiosity to hear what such a being had to say about civilized society.” In Dutch New York, Washington Irving was born, April 3, 1783. Washington’s army occupied the city, the war was over, and the child born in the happy year of peace was given the renowned name of the first Presi- dent. The New York of 1783 had less than twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and covered a narrow strip of land which is now the extreme southern point of the great metropolis. The Dutch and English residents mingled lit- tle with each other. From the quaint gabled houses of the town, with its ancient burghers dozing on benches at the doors of their whitewashed houses, the boy Irving wan- dered almost daily into remote regions of Dutch myth and mystery, for already the drowsy imagination of the Knick- erbockers had created strange stories about the Hudson and Hell-Gate and the Catskills, and, indeed, about all the neighboring country. Irving did not follow his brothers to Columbia College. When sixteen years old he entered a lawyer’s office, but read more poetry than law. He was allowed his own way in these and other matters, for his delicate health had for years been the cause of serious con- cern to his family. With gun and dog he explored the wilderness of New York and voyaged up the Hudson. These outings and ramblings temporarily reinforced his physical strength and stored his mind with material for future use. As Franklin’s first compositions were unsigned commu- THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 41 nications to his brother’s newspaper, so Irving’s first pub- lications were letters purporting to be by one Jonathan Oldstyle, contributed in 1802 to the Morning Chronicle , a newspaper conducted by his brother Peter. In 1804, Irving sailed for Europe to try what the climate of the southern countries and of the Mediterranean could do for his health. For two years he visited the ancient homes of art and culture : the provincial New Yorker be- came a citizen of the world. In 1806 he returned to New York. One of his brothers had married the sister of James Kirke Paulding, and now Irving, his brother Wil- liam, and Paulding began the publication of a semi- monthly periodical called Salmagundi . Its purpose was c ‘ to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age.” In these papers Irving appears, under the pen-name of Launcelot Langstaff, as a success- ful imitator of Addison. Hardly was Salmagundi discon- tinued before Irving had conceived the plan of a burlesque history of New York. It was published in 1809: A His- tory of New York , by Diedrich Knickerbocker. It pur- ported to be a sober history of manners and customs under the Dutch governors. It was even gravely dedi- cated to the New York Historical Society. The book was at once successful. Its broad fun was very contagious. Sir Walter Scott praised it, the world read it and laughed. It is a masterpiece of humor, as perfect in its way as any- thing of Swift or Sterne, and as pure in style as Defoe. In England and on the continent of Europe Irving lived from 1815 to 1832. His fine nature was strangely stirred by the historical associations of the classic soil of England. He had been educated from infancy in the lite- rature of Great Britain, and when actually in contact with the world about which he had been all his life reading and thinking, ineffaceable impressions were made upon his sympathetic nature. “ I have never yet,” he said, “ grown familiar enough with the crumbling monuments 42 AMERICAN LITERATURE. of past ages to blunt the interest with which I at first be- held them.” Again: “I was continually coming upon some little document of poetry, in the blossomed haw- thorn, the daisy, the cowslip, the primrose, or some other simple object, that has received a supernatural value from the muse I shall never forget the thrill of ecstasy with which I first saw the lark rise, almost from beneath my feet, and wing its musical flight up into the morning sky.” The first book published by Irving in England combined, as we would expect, both the old subjects and the new. It was The Sketch-Book , published in 1819-20, and continued the romances of old New York in the im- mortal tales of “Rip Van Winkle” and the “ Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and illustrated all the author’s enthu- siasm for England in the fine essays on Westminster Abbey and Stratford-on-Avon. Sketches and stories of English life continued to ap- pear in Bracebridge Hall (1822) and Tales of a Traveller (1824). In Spain, from 1826 to 1829, Irving was absorbed in literary work, and produced the most important and most fascinating of his books. He undertook first the Life of Columbus. His studies for this acquainted him with the ancient romance of Spain and the stormy days of Moorish rule. He found the fascination of the subject strong upon him, and put the brilliant deeds and splendid history of mediseval Spain into four other books — Conquest of Granada , Alhambra , Moorish Chronicles , and Legends of the Conquest of Spain. Glittering pageants of Moorish war- riors, the castellated palace of the Moors, Ferdinand and Isabella, Saracen and Christian, the sound and stir of bat- tles and triumphs, the swift succession of dazzling pictures, fill these books with a permanent and priceless interest. The enthusiasm of the past was upon him while he wrote. The facts which he gleaned with industry and toil from old chronicles were developed and combined in the THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 43 dreamy air of the Alhambra itself, which for these years was Irving’s residence. In 1829 he resumed his London life, as secretary of the legation to the court of St. James. Honors were lavished upon him. He was petted and admired by all circles of society and of literature. The Royal Society of Litera- ture awarded him a gold medal in 1830, and the Univer- sity of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws, in recognition of his great services to history and literature in his group of Spanish books. In 1832, after an absence of seventeen years, he returned to New York. On the Prairies and in the great West, Irving found himself soon after his return to America. Seventeen years had wrought great changes in the country. Vast currents of emigration were turning westward. Irving’s first desire was to acquaint himself with the entire country. To grat- ify his curiosity, therefore, he undertook an extensive tour beyond the outposts of civilized life into the wilderness of the Far West. In 1835 some of his experiences and obser- vations were published in a Tour on the Prairies . For John Jacob Astor he wrote an account of the fur- trade in the North and North-west, under the title of As- toria , and completed his sketches of wild American life in The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. During this period, also, WolferVs Roost was published^ containing stray papers contributed to the Knickerbocker Magazine. At Sunny side. — In 1842, Irving was sent as minister to Spain, where he remained for four years. On his re- turn, in 1846, he made his home at Sunnyside, near Tarry- town. He was close to Old Sleepy Hollow and in one of the loveliest retreats on the Hudson. Here; surrounded by friends, he lived the last peaceful years of his serene and gentle life. Here he wrote his last group of books, the biographies. First came Mahomet and his Succes - 44 AMERICAN LITERATURE . sors, a work of inferior merit. Then followed the Life of Goldsmith , a sympathetic and touching delineation of that vagrant, thriftless, lovable child of genius, whose style and humor so often find an echo in the pages of his genial biographer. Last of the biographies, most laborious, though not the most successful, is the Life of Washington , minute in its incidents, careful in its judgments, and faithful in its clear portraiture of the great central figure of the Revolu- tion. Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859. Irving’s Subjects. — Three places have been so touched by the magic of Irving’s genius that they have derived from him immortal renown ; they are Sleepy Hollow, on the Hudson ; the Red Horse Inn, at Stratford-on-Avon ; and the Alhambra, in Spain. These places have been ren- dered sacred by him ; they are objects which travellers make great journeys to visit. They represent the three chief interests of Irving’s mind and the three chief sub- jects of all his varied writings. He began by translat- ing the silver thread of the Hudson and the picturesque land through which it is drawn into a vision of romantic interest, and by spending his rich humor on old Dutch drolleries and scenes of early Knickerbocker history. His earliest work was creative and imaginative, and the prime element in it humor — humor boisterous at first in the History of New York , more restrained and refined in the Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon. The tatterdemalion Rip Van Winkle and the whimsical Ichabod Crane are as dis- tinct additions to literature as anything from Dickens or from Thackeray. The second group of Irving’s books consists entirely of exquisite descriptions of English rural life. By a single essay he has for all time identified himself with Stratford-on-Avon, and made his memory as potent there as that of Shakespeare himself. THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 45 To the third group belong those brilliant studies in the chivalrous history of Spain and the final shock of arms between the magnificent armies of Asia and Europe. Irving’s Style. — When Irving delighted England with the Sketch-Book in 1820, Byron and Scott were the idols of the English people. The former had already done his best work ; the latter was in the full maturity of his unrivalled powers. Indeed, in this very year (1820) Ivanhoe was pub- lished. What were the qualities of style that gained for the unknown American the applause of the people, the respect of Byron, and the regard of Scott ? 1. Suavity and Elegance . — By “ suavity” is meant his un- failing good nature, his sympathy, his gentleness of cha- racter, which expressed itself in amiable prose. Irving always addressed himself to the sympathetic side of hu- man nature. His humor was without bitterness ; no per- sonal spite or rancor ever entered his w r ork. By “ ele- gance” is meant the graceful ease with which every sub- ject, story or history, was handled. There was no show nor display, but an easy flow of carefully chosen words and admirably constructed sentences. 2. Humor . — Irving’s humor is the first quality to be ap- preciated in his works. It is unregulated in Salmagundi , boisterous and at times over-broad in the History of New York , but under perfect control and restraint in the Sketch-Book and later publications. It abounds in every- thing he has written. It is a natural overflow of the high spirits and kindly nature of the generous author. 3. Clearness and Simplicity. — Irving is conspicuously lacking in the energy which other and later writers show. His style bears no marks of straining nor of overdressing. W e very rarely find in him examples of inverted sentences or repeated phrases. He certainly had not the power of construction. He could not devise and execute the plan of a long story. But when he clearly saw an incident he could set it down in language of crystal clearness and sim- 46 AMERICAN LITERATURE. plicity. It was, in great part, this refreshing quality that in an age of unrestrained diction and increasing obscurity made his works so popular in England. Irving falls short of being a great writer because of the superficial nature of his work, because of his lack of lite- rary inspiration, which causes his style at times to descend from the artistic to the commonplace, and because of the absence from his histories of all scientific method, and from his essays of serious purpose. The Knickerbocker School is a name often used to denote the early New York writers. The progress of lite- rature in America is from Boston in the colonial times to Hartford in the Revolutionary period, and to New York in the earliest years of the nineteenth century. The prin- cipal writers of the New York group, of which Irving was the head, were James Kirke Paulding, James Fenimore Cooper, Joseph Rodman Drake, Fitz-Greene Halleck, William Cullen Bryant, and N. P. Willis. All these were residents of New York, but two only, Drake and Irving, were born in the city. James Kirke Paulding* (1779-1860) was associated with Irving in the writing of Salmagundi. His bright humor made him a worthy companion of Irving. His patriotism and quick eye for local interests entitle him to a place in that important group of writers who first gave an original flavor to our literature and interested two conti- nents in stories and songs of American life. But Pauld- ing has faded almost entirely from our memories. It is remembered that he was once Secretary of the Navy, and that he wrote The Dutchman's Fireside (1831). The humor and pathos of the book are alike forgotten. Paulding had not the artistic sense, nor the care for literary finish which are necessary to ensure long life for a book. The liveli- ness and humor which we find in him, and in almost all the Knickerbockers, is the natural reaction from the re- THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 47 straint and severe dulness of the Puritan theologians. One other of Paulding’s books, popular in its day, but never opened now, was The Diverting History of John Ball and Brother Jonathan (1812), a clever satire upon England, in the style of Arbuthnot’s John Bull (1713), which in its turn was modelled upon Swift’s Tale of a Tub. The Novel. — Before considering the next writer of the Knickerbocker School it will be necessary to understand the meaning and the history of that form of literary com- position which we call “ the novel.” When the first Vir- ginian and Massachusetts colonists arrived here literature in England was at its height. The most important pro- ductions of that time were dramas. The drama is a repre- sentation of human passions in action. After the drama declined, prose fiction arose. This was about the middle of the eighteenth century. The three writers who then began the long line of modern British novelists were Fielding, Smollett, and Richardson. The novel is so comprehensive, and has so many possi- bilities, that it is hard to define it. It embraces all classes of prose fiction, from the wild tales of extravagant romance to the simple stories of quiet realism. “ The novel ar- ranges and combines round the passion of love and its course between two or more persons, a number of events and characters which in their action on one another develop the plot of the story and bring about a sad or a happy close ” (Brooke). The French Revolution aroused in England an interest in political and social problems, and this interest expressed itself in a new kind of novels. Most remarkable of the novelists of this class was the philosopher William God- win, father-in-law of the poet Shelley. He is best known by his novel of Caleb Williams. Our First Novelist, Charles Brockden Brown (1771- 1810), was an admirer and follower of Godwin. He was 48 AMERICAN LITERATURE. born in Philadelphia in 1771, but became a resident of New York in 1798. In the latter year he published his first novel, Wieland , and in the next three years issued five other romances. Brown’s tales are really romances . They deal with sombre subjects, with improbable passions and ex- periences. The imaginary and the supernatural are the most frequent elements in his works. Wieland is a story of ghastly crime occasioned by a ventriloquist, who, by personating a supernatural being, induces the hero to mur- der his wife and children. His third novel, Arthur Mervyn , contains vivid descriptions of the yellow-fever pestilence in Philadelphia in 1793. In Edgar Huntley the author follows the fortunes of a somnambulist in the gloomy moun- tain-fastnesses of Western Pennsylvania. The plots of these romances are crude, and their style careless and im- mature. The sentences are short, and the words often unusual and inappropriate. But great credit is due to Brown for having discovered the capabilities of romance in our new land, and for having used in all his books Amer- ican characters and scenery. Ghostly stories of crime and supernatural agencies were common when he began to write. It was the time of Lewis’s Romantic Tales and Tales of Terror , of Walpole’s Castle of Otranto , and of Beckford’s Vathek. Brown, however, treated his subjects with so much power that the poet Shelley, into whose hands these American fictions fell, was greatly influenced by them. Brown anticipated Poe, and in his descriptions of the wilderness, its savage beasts and men, he prepared the way for Cooper. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). — In 1820, or in the same year that Irving’s Sketch-Book appeared in Eng- land, Cooper published his first novel. He extended the originality of Irving to subjects more distinctly American. He was “ the second writer to show to the world that we were to have a literature of our own.” Sir Walter Scott had written the best of his “Waverley” novels, THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 49 and had just completed Ivanhoe , when Cooper appeared with his first book. Scott, in his romances, drew from a rich store of ancient Scottish history; Cooper had no such historic past to look back upon, but he invented for America the novel of adventure, and put into literature- the picturesque life of the forest and the sea. In the Wilderness. — Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, September 15, 1789. His father, Judge Cooper, at the close of the Revolutionary War, came into the possession of large tracts of land on Lake Otsego, near the head-waters of the Susquehanna. There he made his permanent home when the future novelist was but one year old. Cooperstown, as the place was called, was in the primeval forest of New York. Young Cooper grew up on the frontier of the wilderness, and in a village yet new from the settler’s axe. Out of this solitude he was sent to Yale College. He proved a dilatory and intractable stu- dent. His early associations had created a love for out- door life and wild scenery that was stronger in him than his affection for books and learning. He was dismissed from college in his third year. On the Sea. — In 1806, Cooper shipped as a common sailor on a merchant vessel. In a year’s time he saw much hard service “ before the mast.” In 1808 he entered the navy. He remained for three years in the service of the Government, when he married and returned to his forest-home. His First Novel was the result of a mere accident. An English society novel had come in his way, and he was reading it to his wife, when, being dissatisfied with the book, he laid it down, saying, “ I believe I could write a better story myself.” The result was the novel entitled Precaution , published in New York in 1820. The story conceived by such curious chance was per- haps as good as the ordinary society novel. But it is dull to the last degree, and is now fortunately forgotten. There 4 50 AMERICAN LITERATURE. is, however, an historical interest about Precaution . It is not without significance that Cooper began his literary career by writing a story of English social life. The de- pendence of America upon England before 1820 had been so complete that nothing was deemed of any value that was not English in its origin or character. To furnish a good imitation of a foreign book was the highest ideal of an American writer. Cooper in his first book was no more original than most of his contemporaries. He not only chose English social life for the subject of his story (a subject about which he knew nothing), but actually pretended that the book was written by an English- man. “The Spy.” — Cooper’s literary life illustrates the his- tory of our national literature. As that history rose from servile imitation in the colonial period into a little brisk- ness and pungency during the Revolution, and to origi- nality of style and subject in the present century, so Cooper advanced from the shallow copy of an English novel of manners to the familiar details of our Revolution, and thence to the free expression in literature of the life of sea and forest. Precaution had not been entirely a failure. Cooper’s friends urged him to try again, and to take a sub- ject with which he was more familiar. He took an episode from the Revolution. The scene was in Westchester, which had been during the war neutral ground between the English and American forces. The book was The Spy (1821). It contained the humble but noble and patriotic character of Harvey Birch, one of the author’s best creations. The success of The Spy was remarkable. English critics received it kindly, and on its appearance in France it excited enthusiasm which continues unabated after more than sixty years. The Leather-Stocking Tales. — The success of The Spy clearly showed Cooper what his career was to be. He was conscious that he possessed the power of delighting THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 51 readers with the witchery of literary skill. In selecting a subject for a third novel he chose the picturesque scenes and homely incidents of the frontier life with which in childhood he had been so familiar. The book was The Pioneers , and appeared in 1823. In it he dwelt fondly upon all the old events and common scenes of a back- woodsman’s life. Its success was immediate. In it ap- peared for the first time the immortal figure of Natty Bumppo (Leather-Stocking). Without doubt Leather- Stocking is the one great original character with which America has enriched the world’s literature. Cooper pre- sented this imposing character, who is a magnificent reali- zation of the early pioneers, in four other books, compris- ing the Leather-Stocking Tales. His life stands in them com- plete, from the first war-path to his old age and death. The order in which the tales were written is not the logical order, or that in which they should be read. The best ar- rangement, or that by which the story of the hero’s life may be continuously followed, is The Deerslayer , The Last of the Mohicans , The Pathfinder , The Pioneers , and The Prairie. [It may be noted that this is also the alphabetical order.] The greatest of these, and the crowning works of Cooper’s genius, are The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder. Among Cooper’s other tales of the wilderness are to be noted The Wept of Wish-ton- Wish, Wyandotte , and the Red- skins. In his delineation of Indian life Cooper is without a peer. He has fixed for ever in literature the character of a vanishing race. “ Throughout the whole civilized world the conception of the Indian character as Cooper drew it in The Last of the Mohicans , and further elaborated it in the later Leather-Stocking Tales , has taken a permanent hold on the imaginations of men ” (Lounsbury). The Sea-Stories. — Sir Walter Scott had published The Pirate in 1821. Cooper, with his experience as a sailor, saw at once that the author was a landsman. At a dinner in New York he argued to that effect against the 62 AMERICAN LITERATURE . opinion of the company. He contended that even where the author’s facts were right he would have made a better and more effective use of them if he had had personal knowledge of life on the ocean. The outcome of the argu- ment was a book entitled The Pilot In this book Cooper created the sea-story. Into it and its successors Cooper put with great success his knowledge of naval manoeuvres and of the handling of ships. Captain Marryat, Clark Russell, and all the host of novelists who have composed sea-stories are debtors to Cooper. The time of The Pilot is the American Revolution. The pilot himself is John Paul Jones. The finest character of the book, and one of Cooper’s best, is Long Tom Coffin of Nantucket. The Red Rover is in many respects the best of Cooper’s sea-tales. Others, published at various dates, are — The Water - Witch , Wing and Wing (story of a French privateer in the Mediterranean), The Two Admirals , Jack Tier , The Crater , The Sea-Lions (hunting for seals in southern seas, winter in the Antarctic Ocean), and Afloat and Ashore , with its sequel, Miles Wallingford . The last two are partly autobiographic. Other Novels* — Satanstoe , a capital book, is an admira- ble account of colonial life in New York. The Chainbearer is a sequel to it. Homeward Bound and its sequel, Home as Found , are books of very unequal merit : the first is a good sea-story, the other an unreasonable criticism of American manners. Lionel IAncoln contains a faithful and excellent description of the battle of Bunker Hill. Mer- cedes of Castile narrates the first voyage of Columbus. The remainder of Cooper’s novels, too poor to deserve com- ment or to merit reading, are The Heidenmauer , The Heads- man, , Oak Openings , The Monikins , and Ways of the Hour. Death of Cooper. — On September 14, 1851, Cooper died at Cooperstown. A marble statue of Leather-Stock- ing, with dog and gun, overlooks his grave, and near by, on Lake Otsego, plies the little steamer “ Natty Bumppo.” THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 53 Cooper, like Irving, rests amid the scenes he has made classic. Cooper's Subjects. — As Charles Brockden Brown followed William Godwin, so Cooper was a follower of Sir Walter Scott. He was frequently called by his con- temporaries the “ American Scott.” But this must not be understood to mean that Cooper was a conscious imitator of the great English novelist. Both composed romances ; both were authors of the “ novel of adventure ;” both achieved popularity. They were alike in the rapidity with which they added book to book, but they were very unlike in the literary value of their products. Cooper was one of the most unequal of writers. Some of his works are so tedious and so barren of all literary charm as to be quite unreadable. Of his thirty-two novels, ten are of this character. In the mind of Washington Irving we discovered three chief interests— first, the Dutch traditions of New York; second, the historic and literary associations of England ; third, the romance of Spain. These three subjects became the centres for three groups of books. The differences of subject in the works of Irving and of Cooper correspond to the different characters of the two men. Irving was gen- tle, scholarly, refined; Cooper elemental, forceful, pas- sionate, loving the vast ocean and the endless forest. The serene days of Irving contrast strongly with the stormy, quarrelsome life of Cooper. After eliminating the ten worthless books from Cooper’s collection, it will be found that ten of the remaining twenty-two novels are sea-stories, and eight are tales of the wilderness. Two have the Revolution for their subject — The Spy and Lionel Lincoln — and two are devoted to old colonial life in New York — Satanstoe and The Chain- hearer . Cooper’s Style. — Cooper wrote too much to write everything well. He composed in great haste, and many 54 AMERICAN LITERATURE. of his works betray such carelessness as to deserve to be called slovenly. The faults of his style are so glaring as to need comment before his merits : 1. His most venial fault is his careless and blundering English. He ignores the nicer distinctions of language. He confuses his grammar, and frequently strains the mean- ings of words or chooses the wrong word when the right one is close at hand. 2. His worst fault is his lack of clearness and of method in the evolution of a plot. (a) Cooper does not impress us, as the great romancers do, with the sense of probability in the incidents of his story. Worse than that, the plot has no unity nor centre. It does not work up to a natural climax, nor bring its characters and events to a natural close. We demand a continuity of interest in a romance, and a clear develop- ment of its plot through the various incidents of its prog- ress. Cooper often does not appear to have foreseen the end of his books from the beginning. He is driven to in- troduce new characters and digress upon strange incidents in order to dispose finally of his romance and successfully conclude the plot. Hence the contradictions and incon- gruities which abound in his books. ( b ) His verboseness is a minor defect in his art which adds to the tediousness of his story-telling. 3. An intermediate fault is his polemic spirit. He is as controversial as the first Puritans. His criticisms of American manners and of our national tendencies in- truded themselves into all his books. Sometimes they were so light as to be pardonable ; sometimes So violent and continuous as to be offensive. Cooper was engaged during the last years of his life in a war with his country, which brought down upon him the hatred of the press and the ill-opinion of his fellow-countrymen. Several of his poorer books, as the Monikins and Home as Found , were ser- mons preached to the American people. His protests THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 55 were too angry and ill-conceived to be effectual, and the books which contained them are now seldom read. Cooper’s merits, like his defects, are quickly discovered. 1. Narrative Power . — There is a native force in Cooper which captures the reader and holds his attention, in the best books, to the end. All men love a good story-teller. Cooper’s vigorous imagination and fresh, lively way of tell- ing his story is the secret of his popularity with the masses. His characters are often weak. He cares more for the rush of incident than for the slower sketching of minute de- tails of character. Hence the cause of much of the adverse criticism upon his works. The old novel of adventure is a little o it of fashion. The wholesome battlepieces of Cooper have given place to studies of society and exercises in the analysis of motive and of character. For these things Cooper had neither genius nor knowledge. But in the kind of fiction that he chose to write he has but one superior, and that one is the greatest of the world’s romancers — Sir Walter Scott. 2. Enthusiasm for Nature. — Cooper’s style is everywhere assisted and elevated by the author’s genuine enthusiasm for wild nature. He is entirely national in his descrip- tions of the lonely and magnificent scenery of his country. The ocean and the forest are the two worlds which his fancy explored. In the first he created the novel of the sea ; in the second, as Lowell wrote of him — “ He has drawn you one character, though, that is new ; One wild flower lie’s plucked that is wet with the dew Of this fresh Western World.” * Drake and Halleck. — There is no more pleasing epi- sode in the history of our literature than the friendship of the two poets, Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) and Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867). The former was a native of New York City ; he was born in 1795. Halleck * Leather-Stocking. 56 AMERICAN LITERATURE. was five years older, and was born at Guilford, Conn. In 1811, Halleck became a resident of New York, and found employment in a counting-room. Two years later, or in the spring of 1813, he and Drake met, and their friendship began. Drake’s fame rests entirely upon one poem. Cooper, Drake, and Halleck had been talking about the Ameri- can rivers and the poetry which might be written about them. Drake’s thoughts continued to dwell upon the theme, and his quick fancy conceived and finished the delicate poem, The Culprit Fay. It was written in August, 1816, but was not published until 1819. It is a dainty little poem, whose melody has been caught from Coleridge and from Moore. Its subject is in the land of faery, though its scene is in the Highlands of the Hudson or in the land of Rip Van Winkle. The Culprit Fay [faery] has fallen in love with a mortal. He is tried and sentenced to purge his wings with a drop from the glistening arch when “ the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,” and to re- illume his flame-wood lamp with the last faint spark from the trail of a shooting star. In 1819, Drake and Halleck formed a literary partner- ship, and produced a series of witty and satirical poems called “ The Croaker Papers.” They were contributed anonymously to the New York Evening Post. The best known of Drake’s pieces in the “ Croaker ” papers is The American Flag> beginning with the lines : “ When Freedom, from her mountain-height, Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night And set the stars of glory there.” Drake died of consumption Sept. 21, 1820. His death was mourned by Halleck in one of the most precious poems of our literature. In 1819, when Drake published The Culprit Fay , Halleck THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 57 printed his longest poem, Fanny , an amusing satire on the fashions and follies of the time. After a trip to Europe, Halleck published the few fine lyrics that have given him his reputation, Alnwick Castle , Burns , and Marco Bozzaris . After the death of John Jacob Astor, in whose office he had been for many years, Halleck retired to his native Guilford. He continued to write verses of small merit until his death, in 1867. Neither Drake nor Halleck were writers of the first order. Drake gave promise of excellence in melody and in imagi- nation which was destined to remain unfulfilled. Halleck is signalized by directness and energy of language, bright fancy, and pleasant satire. To illustrate the service that they rendered to our literature it is only necessary to com- pare for a moment the tedious, prosy rhymes of Barlow, Dwight, and the Revolutionists with the gay and pungent verses of “ Croaker and Co.” William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). — As 1809, the year of Diedrich Knickerbocker, is the first date in our true American prose, so 1817 is the first date in our true Amer- ican poetry. It is the year of the publication, in the North American Review , of Bryant’s “ Thanatopsis.” Bryant is to our native imaginative poetry what Irving is to our native prose. His fame does not depend, like Drake’s, upon a single poem, nor, like Halleck’s, upon a few successful lyrics, but is genuine and secure because it is the reward of a long and complete literary career marked by a series of poems of uniform excellence. The products of his life need no apology nor recommendation, even when judged by high critical standards. Where other poets had suc- ceeded by accident, he succeeded by sheer poetic genius. Where others in earlier years had contentedly copied foreign writers or painfully felt their way toward some degree of orig- inality, Bryant pursued his solitary way absorbed in the con- templation of American scenery and creating poems which nobly expressed the depth and dignity of his character. 58 AMERICAN LITERATURE. William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, Mass., Nov. 3, 1794. He was educated for two years at Williams College. He studied law, and for a few years practised his profession, but in a half-hearted way. He deplored the necessity that forced him “ to toil for the dregs of men, and scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen ” (“ Green River ”). In 1825 he removed to New York, and in the following year he became editor of the Evening Post . From 1827 to 1829 he was associated with G. C. Verplanck and R. C. Sands in the writing of an “ Annual ” called The Talisman . An edition of his poems was published in England in 1832 through the influence of Washington Irving. In 1870-71 he published a note- worthy translation of the Iliad and Odyssey. He died on the 12th of June, 1878. Bryant’s Early Poems. — Like many another poet, Bryant began rhyming at a tender age. In his father’s library he had often read the artificial verses of Pope, who was then the favorite poet of New England readers. In 1808 the fourteen-year-old boy published, in the style of Pope, a poem called The Embargo. It was a satire upon Thomas Jefferson and the embargo which in the previous year had been laid upon American shipping. The verses are of no value, but are interesting as illustrating the author’s early facility in poetic composition. Thanatopsis marks the beginning of our poetry. It was published in the North American Review in September, 1817, but was written in 1812. The Greek word coined for the title suggests the subject of the poem — “ a vision of death.” The author’s thought lingers upon the soothing influences of nature, and, wandering abroad in the uni- verse, contemplates the ebb and flow of the generations of men. There is no direct mention of immortality in the poem ; only the stern spectacle of the present life and its inevitable end. The solemnity and maturity of the poem are unsurpassed in literature, and are wonderful as emanat- THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 59 in g from a boy of seventeen. The style, too, sustains the dignity of the lofty theme. It is written in blank verse, and that difficult measure has never been more skilfully and powerfully handled by any American poet. In 1821, in the same year with The Spy and the English edition of the Sketch-Book , Bryant published a small vol- ume, containing his longest poem, “The Ages.” Like “ Thanatopsis,” it is a vision , but this time of the pano- rama of history. Its high-hearted patriotism is its most distinguished mark. Bryant’s Poetry. — Natural scenery was Bryant’s prin- cipal interest. He has been called the “ American Words- worth,” because his love of nature was so genuine and his descriptions of it so frequent. His landscapes are always American. They are not pictures that might be true in any land, but they are faithful delineations of the peculiar features of American scenery. He is most successful when describing “ old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,” or “ the hills rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,” or “ the dim forest crowded with old oaks.” His finest poems are inspired by the familiar things of nature. The lines “ To a Waterfowl,” “ Green River,” “ The Death of the Flow- ers,” “ The Evening Wind,” have their human interest and sympathy, but that which is best in them is the true feel- ing for even the humble and minute in nature. The “ Song of Marion’s Men ” is a delightful account of the romantic life of the South Carolina Robin Hood and his band, but it was the love of the forest, “ the good green- wood,” that prompted Bryant to the subject. Bryant was not dramatic. He did not carefully study character nor disturb himself with problems of the mind. He had no gifts as a story-teller, and hence the principal fault in his translation of Homer. It lacks movement, variety, and energy. He Wrote some patriotic ballads memorable for the sin- cere love of liberty which burns in them. Such are 60 AMERICAN LITERATURE. “ Italy,” “ Not Yet,” “ Greek Partisan,” and “ The Massa- cre at Scio.” Nobility of subject and dignity of form, characterize the work of Bryant in all periods of his life. The dignity of form is seen at its best in his masterly use of the ten- syllabled unrhymed line which we call blank verse. It is used with splendid effect in “ Thanatopsis,” “ Forest Hymn,” and “ Antiquity of Freedom.” Amid the changes of literary fashion and the rise of new ideals during his long career, Bryant held his serene course, developing with care and patience a style which, though not original, was well adapted to the needs of his verse and the character of his thought. One fault of Bryant’s poetry is its preaching tendency. He does not sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. He rarely lets a subject go without appending to it a moral. It was a consequence of his early New England training, an effect of Puritanism from which he never escaped. Bryant’s mind was naturally solemn and lofty. His thought was sombre, and but little touched with those closer sympathies which win the hearts of men. He kindled no enthusiasms, but he, first among our writers, upheld pure ideals of the poet’s task, and amid all the dis- tractions of his political and practical life never departed from the high and earnest purposes of literature. Minor Writers. — N. P. Willis (1806-67) made his home in New York, and in journalism and in society aided in the development of literature. His own writings are almost completely neglected. He wrote a few sacred poems and a number of books of travel, of which the best, perhaps, is Pencillings hy the Way. Geo. P. Morris (1802-64) and Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842) founded in 1823 the New York Mirror , for twenty years a useful literary journal. Morris wrote the popular “Woodman, Spare that Tree,” and Woodworth the equally popular “ Old Oaken Bucket.” THE NEW YORK WRITERS. 61 Payne and the Dramatists. — John Howard Payne was born in New York City, 1792; died in Tunis, Africa, 1852. He was both actor and playwright. Of the great number of his plays, two only are now acted : Brutus and Charles II. His fame is, however, perpetual by reason of the song of “ Home, Sweet Home,” which formed part of his play of The Maid of Milan. The first American comedy produced upon the stage was The Contrast , performed in New York in 1786. It was the first work of Royall Tyler (1757-1826). The list of American dramas is brief and uninteresting. Compositions like Metamora (J. A. Stone) and The Gladi- ator (R. M. Bird) have no place in literature. CHAPTER IV. The Awakening of New England. New York did not long continue to direct the literature it had begun. The brilliant writers who gathered about Irving and Bryant left no successors. Halleck and Bryant, like others of the New Yorkers, were too deep in business cares to make literature a serious occupa- tion. The force which had produced the first forms of imaginative prose and poetry, and fairly started a national literature, had apparently spent itself. About the year 1832, New England became the seat of a vigorous lite- rary life, and Massachusetts the home of the most promis- ing men of letters in America. Literature had again trans- ferred its capital, from New York to Boston. The general causes of this new stir of life in New Eng- land and this awakening of intelligence were — 1. The Conclusion of the Revolution had left the country at peace, and by 1820 it had recovered from the exhaustion of the long struggle, and awakened to a sense of national unity and power, and to a feeling of pride in its successful history. A national literature could not exist without national unity and a sense of national responsi- bility. High-hearted patriotism and devotion to the Re- public found fervent expression in the orations of Webster and the essays of the scholars. 2. Changes of Religion. — Immediately before the Rev- olution the religious zeal of the Puritans had subsided into 62 THE A WAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 63 dulness or indifference. A new creed was slowly spread- ing through New England. It was Unitarianism. It was a natural reaction from the sombre severity of Puritan- ism. The sectarian narrowness of the religious teachers of the colonies had confined Christianity to a few select be- lievers in a single system of theology. Their intolerance would not permit any liberality of thought. The laws were administered by clerical authority. The unity of the colony was maintained by the strict rules of the Church, i Only church-members could be admitted as “ freemen.” After the Revolution the same discipline could no longer be applied to the changed conditions of social life. The authority of the leaders of the Church was no longer rec- ognized. The defiance of the people to the old parental form of colonial government resulted in increased im- morality and irreligion. Under the old religion gayety had been repressed ; mirth and enjoyment were regarded as things of evil. The strug- gle for a new belief was the attempt to substitute joy for gloom and tolerance for bigotry. In the controversy between the old and the new, the mental powers were aroused and stimulated. Harvard College became Uni- tarian, and the pulpits of Unitarian churches were filled with the best scholars and writers of the time. 3. Communication with Europe. — The eloquence and originality of the leaders of the New England revolt c?’eated, in Eastern Massachusetts particularly, a new and vivid sense of the duty of life and the dignity of art. In 1820, Edward Everett returned from Europe and told the people of Boston of the treasures of art and wisdom that lay in the literature of Germany. In 1823, Channing, the chief of the Unitarians, in his Remarks on a National Literature , made an eloquent plea for the study of French and German writers, in order that our literature might be broadened into an independence that would place it on terms of equality with the literature of Great Britain. 64 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Goethe was then in the maturity of his powers, and Coleridge was arousing England with the new philosophy of Germany. Enthusiastic study of German thought be- gan at once in New England. Many translations were made by Ripley, Dwight, and Hedge. The philosophical thought of Germany soon began to modify the Unitarian- ism of Channing and his followers. Not only was the criticism of Germany received, but also the new poetry of England was eagerly read. A chain of causes had brought about in England a literary revolution. The old favorite of the colonists, Alexander Pope, was deposed from his place at the head of literature. What had been artificial became natural. Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth belonged to the new school. The world was full of new energy, and the newly-awakened spirit of New England was prompt to take its place in the progress of the time. Groups of Writers. — The new spiritual and intel- lectual life of New England, produced mainly by the three causes just named — the sense of national pride, the rise of a liberal theology, and the influence of the literatures of Germany and England — expressed itself in three groups of authors : First, the political group, including the great orators ; second, the poets and theologians, belonging to the early days of separation in the Church; third, the scholastic group, including the Concord writers and the poets, novelists, and essayists who completed the reforms of the Unitarians. The first group belongs rather to history than to litera- ture, but some of its names have too much literary value to be omitted from even a hasty survey. The second and third groups represent the true literary characters who, together with the New York writers, are the creators of our national literature. The new intellectual life of New England thus produced and thus expressed had also three epochs , or three chapters THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 65 of history. They were — (1) Unitarianism, (2) Transcen- dentalism, (3) The antislavery movement. The first was led by Channing, the second by Emerson, the third (in literature) by Whittier. They were successive stages of one movement of humanity. The first epoch is repre- sented by the second group of writers — the second and third epochs by the third group. The First Group stands apart from the main literary current of the time, and may therefore be quickly disposed of. To it belong the great orators and statesmen whose eloquence adorns our literature, and whose wisdom digni- fies our political history. Prominent among them were Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Alexander Hill Eve- rett, Edward Everett, and Rufus Choate. Contempo- rary with them in the South were Robert Y. Hayne and John C. Calhoun. These men belonged to an age of unexampled political development. The new republic was expanding across the continent. New States were rapidly admitted, and the planting of the wilderness was advanced by ever-in- creasing armies of settlers. Jefferson in 1803 had pur- chased Louisiana, and thereby given to the United States the key to the Mississippi and the granary of the West. In the midst of this prosperity the nation experienced its first strain. Sectional dispute and party quarrels arose over questions of slavery, tariff, and States’ rights. The champion of “ nullification ” was Calhoun ; the defend- ers of Federal principles were, above all others, Clay and Webster. Henry Clay (1777-1852) was one of America’s greatest orators. But the power of his oratory resided in his per- sonal force and magnetism ; his speeches had very little literary value. His genius was great, but unschooled. His character was beyond reproach. He was the idol of his party (the Whigs), and, if not always safe as a leader, was yet always inspired by the truest patriotism. 5 66 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Daniel Webster was bom in Salisbury, N. H., Jan. 18, 1782. His education began at the Exeter Academy, was continued under the tuition of the Rev. Samuel Wood, and was completed in Dartmouth College, whence he was graduated in 1801. After leaving Dartmouth, Webster sup- ported himself and helped his brother through college by teaching school at Fryeburg, Me. In 1804, he entered the law-office of Christopher Gore in Boston, and soon after began the practice of his profession. In 1812, he was elected to Congress. His first political act was a criticism of the Embargo. At the expiration of his second term in Congress (March 4, 1817) he retired to private life, when his law-practice increased greatly. His first important case was his famous defence of Dartmouth College against the encroachments of the New Hampshire legislature. This was in 1818. In 1820 he delivered a magnificent me- morial oration upon the second centennial of the Landing of the Pilgrims. His oration in 1825 at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument placed him in the . first rank of the orators of the world. In 1826 he deliv- ered his eulogy upon Adams and Jefferson. In the follow- ing year he was elected to the Senate. The “ Tariff of 1828 ” led to the announcement of the principles of nulli- fication by Calhoun and the public men of South Carolina. In December, 1829, a resolution limiting the sale of public lands was introduced into the Senate by Samuel A. Foote of Connecticut. In the debate over this resolution Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina attacked the New England States. On the 26th and 27th of January, 1830, Webster replied in the greatest speech ever delivered in this coun- try, and perhaps the greatest in history. It is best known as “ The Reply to Hayne.” In the same year he made his famous speech on the trial of the murderers of Joseph White. He was Secretary of State under President Harrison and under President Fillmore. He was twice defeated for the nomination to the Presidency. His last great speech THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 67 was on the “ Fugitive-Slave Law,” in 1850. He died at Marshfield, Mass., Oct. 24, 1852. Webster’s Genius. — Webster stands in American his- tory as the representative of the grand idea of Union. All his powers were devoted to the illustration of “ the neces- sity and the nobility of the Union of the States.” His ora- tions were the mightiest of the literary influences that made the sentiment of Union and the belief in the grand- eur of our nationality so much a part of the consciousness of the American people that the country was carried safely through the crisis of the Civil War. Webster’s profound love of country, and his prophetic vision of the immense future of America, gave a philosophical value to every ora- tion and a weight of meaning to every sentence. He dig- nified every subject by his broad, popular, and impressive treatment of it. His orations have always a wide horizon ; they concern “ the distant generations ” as well as the present listeners. Webster’s style was simple but majestic. It was entirely his own, and expressed his imposing personality. Its chief features were — (1) clearness of vision, (2) accurate combination, (3) logical argument, (4) forcible illustra- tion. Unity was as much the key-note of Webster’s style as of his thought. His clearness, freshness, and force were the outcome of the extreme simplicity of his style. Rhetoric never prevented the logical development of his argument. 1 The Everetts. — Alexander Hill Everett (1792- 1847) was graduated from Harvard College, studied law under John Quincy Adams, and went to Russia, in 1809, as secretary to the legation. He was minister to Spain 1825-29, after which he became proprietor and editor of the North American Review , which had been previously conducted by his brother Edward. He published Europe ; or, A General Survey of the Political Position of the Principal Powers (1822), America ; or, A General Survey of the Political Situation of the 68 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Several Powers of the Western Continent (1827), Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1845), and Poems (1845). His best essays were contributed to the North American Review . Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 11, 1794, and died in Boston, Jan. 15, 1865. He was grad- uated from Harvard with the highest honors in 1811. In 1813 he succeeded the Rev. J. S. Buckminster as pastor of the Brattle Square Church, Boston. In 1814 he was ap- pointed professor of Greek literature at Harvard. He then went abroad and studied in foreign universities, par- ticularly in Gottingen. He returned to America in 1820 and became editor of the North American Review . He had been the most eloquent of preachers ; he now became the most inspiring of teachers. The first interest in German literature proceeded from him. In 1824 he was elected to Congress, and kept his seat ten years. In 1835 he became governor of Massachusetts, and “ at the next election was defeated by only one vote out of more than one hundred thousand.” He was appointed, through the influence of Webster, minister to England. He received honorary de- grees from both Oxford and Cambridge. From 1846 till 1849 he was president of Harvard College. In 1852 he succeeded Daniel Webster as Secretary of State. He was instrumental in purchasing Mount Vernon, and for that purpose delivered a series of lectures, the proceeds of which amounted to ninety thousand dollars. Everett in Literature. — Two of Mr. Everett’s poems are still remembered : they are “ Alaric the Visigoth” and “ Santa Croce.” He published Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions (1836), Importance of Practical Education and Useful Knowledge (1836). More than a hundred arti- cles are contained in the three published volumes of his orations. His first famous address was in 1824, “ On the Circumstances Favorable to the Progress of Literature in America.” At its close occurred the memorable apostro- phe to La Fayette, who was the guest of the evening. THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 69 Everett was very successful in popularizing the discov- eries of science and the researches of history. His oratory was of a different type from Webster’s. Everett’s was the oratory of elegance — Webster’s, of force. The chief char- acteristic of Everett’s mind was just judgment. His rhe- torical grace is fine, but artificial. The smoothness and symmetry of his productions are the natural outcome of his thorough scholarship. “ His style, with matchless flexibility, rises and falls with his subject, and is alternately easy, vivid, elevated, ornamented, or picturesque, adapting itself to the dominant mood of the mind as an instrument responds to the touch of a master’s hand ” (Hillard). Everett did not possess that highest art, which is the con- cealment of art. The reader is painfully conscious that the author is trying to say something brilliant. His sen- tences are prepared with labored care. They are not spon- taneous, like Webster’s, but diligently studied. Everett wrote with his eye upon the style rather than upon the thought. Another defect is his want of intellectual depth and vigor. Rufus Choate was born in Essex, Mass., Oct. 1, 1799, and died in Halifax, Nova Scotia, July 13, 1859. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1819. He was confirmed in his intention to study law by hearing Webster’s speech in the Dartmouth College case. He entered the law-office of William Wirt. In 1841 he was elected to Webster’s place in the United States Senate. Choate was deeply learned in the Greek language and literature. “ In many ways he was the most scholarly of all American public men.” His wide reading had refined a character which was, by nature, gentle and kindly. His writings have been collected in two volumes by S. G. Brown, with a memoir. His greatest effort was his eulogy upon Daniel Webster. His knowledge of the resources of the English language was almost unequalled. His style, while not a good model for imitation, is one of the most interesting to study. Its 70 AMERICAN LITERATURE. most noticeable feature is its long sentences. Choate’s skill in speaking conducted his hearers safely through all the balanced parts of these interminable sentences. Often a single sentence would contain four hundred words, and some even contained seven hundred. The chief causes of these long sentences were — first, the author’s ful- ness of information. He crowded his paragraphs with the knowledge with which his own mind was so richly stored. In the second place, his fondness for adjectives caused his sentences to outrun all proper limits. Whatever the sub- ject under discussion, Choate drew from his unlimited vocabulary the qualifying words which would accurately define its character. It is said that in a simple case relat- ing to the theft of some harness he described the missing articles as “ safe, sound, secure, substantial, second-hand, second-rate harness.” The Southern Orators. — Robert Y. Hayne (1791- 1839) was a native of South Carolina. He took a vigorous part in the nullification controversy and in the opposition to the protective system. In 1830 he became involved in a debate with Webster upon the principles of the Constitu- tion and the rights of States, which elicited from Webster his famous “ Reply to Hayne.” * John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was the most eloquent orator and leading debater of the South. He entered Yale College in 1802. He was admitted to the bar in 1807. In 1811 he entered the House of Representatives. In 1817 he became Secretary of War. In 1824 he was elected Vice-President of the United States. In 1832 he was elected to the Senate, where he appeared as the cham- pion of nullification. Every great political measure of his time received his careful thought, and was in some measure influenced by his opinion. His eloquence was clear, direct, and energetic. There was, too, a moral power * See Paul H. Hayne, p. 131. THE A WAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 71 in his life which commanded the respect even of his op- ponents. His honesty lent authority to every word that he spoke. Edward Everett once said : “ Calhoun, Clay, Webster! I name them in alphabetical order. What other precedence can be assigned them? Clay, the great leader; Webster, the great orator; Calhoun, the great thinker.” His works have been collected in six volumes (1853-54). The Second Group includes the early poets and the first theologians, prior to 1832. The Early Poets were contemporary with the New York writers. They show signs of the rising interests of New England, but there was nothing in either their thought or style to preserve them from oblivion. They have the credit that is due to all pioneers, but their own poor quality cannot keep them in the regard of the world. 1. Washington Allston (1779-1843), poet and painter, was a power for culture in early New England. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1800, in his twenty- first year. He studied art in Rome. He learned from Coleridge the meaning of the new poetic movements of Germany and England. In art he was our first great painter, and has been called, because of his ability in coloring, the “ American Titian.” His principal literary works were The Sylphs of the Seasons (1813) and Monaldi (1841). 2. Richard Henry Dana, brother-in-law of Allston, was born at Cambridge in 1787, and died in Boston 1879. He entered Harvard, but did not graduate. In 1814 he joined the Anthology Club of Cambridge, of which John Quincy Adams was a member. Under the auspices of this organization The North American Review was published ; the first number appeared in May, 1815. Dana and his cousin, E. T. Channing, became joint editors of the Review in 1818. The Idle Man, a periodical miscellany of stories, essays, and poems, was begun by Dana, assisted by Bry- 72 AMERICAN LITERATURE. ant and Allston, in 1822. Dana’s best work was his long poem, The Buccaneer (1827). Other Poets. — James Gates Percival (1795-1856), a poor poetaster, John Pierpont, and Charles Sprague con- tributed verses, now happily forgotten, to the growing lite- rature of New England. In Connecticut, Hillhouse and Brainard were the poets. Two women won fame in those early days. Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865) of Connecticut was the American favorite. Maria Gowen Brooks (Maria del Occidente) was a writer of much greater force. She was born in Massachusetts in 1795, and died in Cuba in 1845. At the home of Southey, in Keswick, England, she wrote part of her principal work, Zophiel ; or , The Bride of Seven. The poem does not merit the high praise it re- ceived from Southey and from Lamb, but it is a remark- able performance. It is founded on the story of Sara in the book of Tobit. It is the love of a fallen angel for a Hebrew maiden. The Theologians who, with the poets mentioned above, complete the second group of writers of the time of the New England awakening, are William Ellery Chan- ning, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, Orville Dewey, Charles Follen, and William Ware. The Unitarian protest took definite shape under the direction of these men about 1815. 1. Channing was born in Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780; died in Bennington, Vt., October 2, 1842. He was edu- cated at Harvard College. In 1803 he took charge of the Federal Street Church, Boston. His literary reputation began with his contributions to the North American Review. About 1815 he was recognized as leader of the Unitarians. The story of the controversy between the old theology and the new, and the history of the rise of literary interests in New England, may be studied in the volumes of his ser- THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND . 73 mons delivered between 1815 and 1830. “ From the high, old-fashioned pulpit his face beamed down, it may be said, like the face of an angel, and his voice floated down like a voice from higher spheres. It was a voice of rare power and attraction, clear, flowing, melodious, slightly plaintive, so as curiously to catch and win upon the hearer’s sympa- thy. . . . Often, too, when signs of physical frailty were apparent, it might be said that his speech was watched and waited for with that sort of hush as if one was waiting to catch his last earthly words.” His influence was great in all social reforms, as well as in literary progress. His best literary production was his essay on the “ Character and Writings of John Milton.” 2. J. S. Buckminster (1784-1812) restored the authority of the Greek and Roman classics in education and litera- ture — an authority which had greatly suffered during the Revolution. His library of ancient authors was large, and freely open to young students. None of the theologians, save Channing only, exercised so great an influence over the moral and intellectual life of New England. In 1809 he delivered a famous and inspiring address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge. One passage in it is very significant as a prophecy of the new literature which was then just about to appear. “ Our poets and historians,” he said, “ our critics and orators, the men of whom posterity are to stand in awe, and by whom they are to be instructed, are yet to appear among us. But, if we are not mistaken in the signs of the times, the genius of our literature begins to show symptoms of vigor and to meditate a bolder flight, and the generation which is to succeed us will be formed on better models and leave a brighter track.” 3. Orville Dewey (1794-1882) was the assistant of Dr. Channing in Boston. His lectures on the “ Education of the Pluman Race ” and on “ The Problem of Human Life ” were very successful, 74 AMERICAN LITERATURE . 4. Charles Pollen was bom in Romrod, Germany, in 1796. He had been professor of civil law in the University of Basel. But the Prussian government demanded that he should be surrendered to “ justice ” for the crime of teaching revolutionary doctrines. He escaped to America and was made professor of German at Harvard. He lost his place through his devotion to the antislavery cause. In 1836 he was ordained a Unitarian clergyman. He lost his life in 1840 on the steamer “ Lexington,” which took fire on Long Island Sound. 5. William Ware (1797-1852) came of a distinguished family of clergymen. His father, Henry Ware, was Hollis professor of divinity at Harvard. His brother, Henry Ware, Jr., was professor of pulpit eloquence in the same university. William Ware wrote two admirable historical novels, full of classical learning — Zenobia , and its sequel, Aurelian. The latter describes the persecution of the Christians in Rome. The Third Group. — About the year 1815 the Uni- tarian movement in Massachusetts definitely began. It culminated about 1832. To the years between 1815 and 1832 belong, for the most part, the writers of the second group. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Concord writers, and the antislavery workers belong to the third group, and beyond them are the poets, historians, essayists, and novelists who made rich our literature from 1832 until the outbreak of the Civil War. Ralph Waldo Emerson. — Emerson is the most im- portant figure in our literature. He wrote in both prose and poetry, but was most successful in the former. He was a philosopher and a teacher. He taught the high ideals of pure living and lofty intelligence, and administered the best lessons of fortitude and self-reliance. Others have excelled him in literary skill and in power of imagination, THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 75 but Emerson’s name is, for wise thoughtfulness and far- reaching influence, the brightest in the history of our literature. Emerson’s Ancestry. — Emerson came of a long line of scholars and preachers. His grandfather, William Emer- son, was the heroic pastor of Concord who urged his flock on the 19th of April, 1775, “ to stand their ground.” His father, also William Emerson, was editor from 1805 to 1811 of The Monthly Anthology , the journal of the Anthol- ogy Club, of which Mr. Emerson was vice-president. Out of the Monthly Anthology grew the famous North American Review , and out of the Anthology Club Library grew the Boston Athenaeum. Education. — Emerson was born May 25, 1803, in Bos- ton, “ within a kite-string of the birthplace of Benjamin Franklin.” He was sent to the Boston Latin School in 1813. In 1817 he entered Harvard College, where he had a struggle with poverty, and came under the influence of Edward Everett. He neglected mathematics, but read widely in literature. He was graduated in 1821. During the next three years lie assisted his brother in school- teaching. Having saved from two to three thousand dol- lars by this means, he entered Cambridge Divinity School in 1825 to study for the ministry. At this time he was strongly influenced by W. E. Channing. In 1829 he suc- ceeded Henry Ware, Jr., in the charge of the Second Church of Boston. Great political changes were maturing in 1832. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the last statesmen of the Revolution, had died on the same day in 1826. The des- perate controversy between Federal unity and State sov- ereignty was preparing. In literature new ideas were tak- ing shape in both Europe and America. In this year the leading men of Germany, France, and England, Goethe, Cuvier, and Scott, died. The romantic movement of Shelley, Keats^ Byron, and Wordsworth was at its 76 AMERICAN LITERATURE. height. Goethe had suggested the grand principle of evo- lution in science, and a new age with new interests and new men was about to be born. In this year Emerson resigned from his church and crossed the ocean. He wanted especially to see four Eng- lish writers. In Italy he found Walter Savage Landor. In England he talked with Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Carlyle. From them he derived new ideas, and his mind expanded in the presence of the large ideals of the leaders of English thought. Between Emerson and Carlyle began a friendship almost unique in literature and of great con- sequence to both writers. On his return to America, Emer- son began his career as a lecturer. In 1834 he made his home in Concord. On the anniversary of the battle of Lex- ington, April 19, 1836, he read the famous verses now called the “ Concord Hymn.” Two days later he married Lidian Jackson, sister to Dr. Charles Jackson, who first used ether as an anaesthetic. In August of the same year he completed Nature , his first important work. It was published the next month. Nature remains the most intense of all Emerson’s writings. It put an end to many of the old controversies of America, and made literature of the theology of New England. It discussed the problems of liberty and neces- sity, of human freedom and divine sovereignty. In this way it corresponded to Jonathan Edwards’s famous study, but it suggested ideas of which Edwards never dreamed. The beauty of the book was in its exquisite descriptions of nature. Its chief value was in the identity which it pointed out of natural and spiritual law, and in the asser- tion that every existence in nature is the counterpart of an existence in the mind. A great scientist, Prof. Tyndall, wrote in his copy of Nature — “ Purchased by inspiration.” Lectures. — Emerson next attempted a course of lec- tures on “The Philosophy of History.” On August 31, 1837, he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society an THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 77 oration on u Man Thinking, or the American Scholar.” Its effect was extraordinary. “ It was an event without any former parallel in our literary annals — a scene to be always treasured in the memory for its picturesqueness and its in- spiration. What crowded and breathless aisles ! what win- dows clustering with eager heads !” (Lowell). Dr. Holmes called the oration “ our intellectual Declaration of Inde- pendence.” It gave positive assurance that the time had come for a literature which should no longer be feeble nor imitative. Emerson continued the thought of this inspiring address in his next course, upon “ Human Culture.” In 1838 he delivered his famous address before the Divinity School. The Dial was a journal established by Emerson in 1840. It was edited by Emerson and Margaret Fuller until 1844, when it ceased. More than forty of Emerson’s pieces were contributed to it. Among his poems in The Dial were such famous ones as “ The Problem,” u Wood-Notes,” and “ The Sphinx.” Essays. — Emerson’s favorite form of writing was the essay. His first series of essays appeared in 1841. His plan was to polish and finish his lectures, and gather enough together to make a small volume. Among the subjects treated in the first series (twelve in all) are “ History,” “ Self-Reliance,” “ Friendship,” “Heroism,” “ Intellect.” They were not difficult and obscure like Nature. Each was crowded with thought, and the thoughts were expressed in language clear as crystal. The second series of essays appeared in 1844. Among the subjects included in the volume were “ The Poet,” “ Experience,” “ Character,” “ Manners.” The first con-' tains the most imagination. It defines grandly the cha- racter and mission of the poet. English Traits. — In 1847, Emerson made a second visit to England. He lectured in several cities, and in 1856 78 AMERICAN LITERATURE. published his impressions of English life under the title English Traits. Representative Men was published in 1850. It was a col- lection of lectures delivered in 1845. The first was “ The Uses of Great Men.” Then followed studies of Plato the philosopher, Swedenborg the mystic, Montaigne the sceptic, Shakespeare the poet, Napoleon the man of the world, and Goethe the writer. Last Years. — The final lectures of Emerson form three volumes — Conduct of Life (1860), Society and Solitude (1870), and Letters and Social Aims (1875). In 1877 he published May-Day , the most elaborate of his longer poems. Parnassus , a volume of selected poems, appeared in 1874. For some years before his death Emerson suffered from almost complete loss of memory. He died April 27, 1882. Emerson’s Character. — Emerson’s manhood, no less than his genius, is worthy of admiration and of reverence. His life corresponded to his brave, cheerful, and steadfast teaching. He lived as he wrote. His manners were gen- tle, his nature transparent, and his life singularly pure and happy. The most striking features of his character were his optimism and his loyalty to truth. Always hopeful, always serene, the good and gracious Emerson has left memories of his manliness that are among the priceless possessions of our literature. Place in Literature. — (1) “ We were still socially and intellectually moored to English thought till Emerson cut the cable and gave us a chance at the dangers and glories of blue water ” (Lowell). His manly and independent at- titude was the most wholesome example that American literature could have. (2) Puritan theology had seen in man a vile creature whose instincts for beauty and pleasure were proofs of his depravity. Imaginative literature was impossible under THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 79 such conditions. Unitarianism was the reaction from the Puritan austerity, and aimed to dignify man. The Uni- tarian movement took its first definite shape in the work of Channing. Emerson expanded the ideas of Channing, and converted the aspirations of theology into literature. (3) Emerson was, above all else, a thinker. He pon- dered the relations of man to God and to the universe. He taught the noblest ideals of virtue and of spiritual life. (4) The present age is scientific. The splendid dis- coveries of science have profoundly affected literature. Emerson was the first in America to make science into literature, and to explain the problems of nature “by his instincts of beauty and religion.” Emerson’s Style. — The charm of Emerson’s style is due to two circumstances : first, the perfection of his sen- tences ; second, his unerring choice of the right word. (1) His sentences were short. They were the faultless expression of noble ideas. Emerson spent much time over his sentences, polishing them as a lapidary would a gem. They were carefully revised until every superfluous word was eliminated. (2) Emerson was singularly fortunate in his choice of words. There is never a misfit. He was always able to find exactly the word required to express his thought. It is the right word in the right place. The chief defect in the style of Emerson is the lack of coherence between the parts of a poem or an essay. The logical connection between the sentences is not always clear. It is sometimes a little hard to make out exactly what sentence Number Two has to do with sentence Num- ber One. An English critic has even said that the essays read as if the sentences had been shuffled in a hat and ar- ranged haphazard. The desire for compression led Emer- son not only to shorten his sentences, but to omit those intermediate clauses which explain the author’s process of thought. Hence Emerson has left no great and finished 80 AMERICAN LITERATURE. work. He is a master of sentences, but he fails to build them into a symmetrical structure. Emerson’s Influence. — Emerson clearly understood the main tendencies of the time, and in his literary work he has impersonated them. His teachings, both intel- lectual and moral, “ have become,” says Mr. Norton, “ part of the unconsciously acquired creed of every young Amer- ican of good and gracious nature.” He is worth more to us as an educational force than any modern European writer. Every book and every lecture that emanated from his tranquil Concord home was a rebuke to our selfish materialism, summoning us back to legitimate pieties and purity of thought. The Transcendentalists. — The Unitarianism of Chan- ning became, about 1832, the Transcendentalism of Emer- son. From a philosophical point of view, Transcendental- ism was the application of idealism to nature and the affairs of life. But in the sight of history it stands for that spirit of inquiry and experiment which marked the days of intellectual revolution in New England. Liberalism in Europe (1830-50) was dissolving the old political and social order. All the European states save Russia were being transformed by it. Liberalism in scientific thought was changing the character of literature and philosophy. New experiments were being tried in religion, in educa- tion, and in society. Transcendentalism is the phase which this revolt took in New England. “ The history of genius and of religion in these times,” said Emerson, “ will be the history of this tendency.” The Dial was its literary organ, but the best statement of its aims was in Emerson’s orations of 1837-38. Brook Farm. — One of the curious incidents in the awakening of New England was the founding of the Brook Farm community. The dissatisfaction which the THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND . 81 leading spirits of the time felt with the selfishness and shallowness of the existing social order led many of them to dream of an ideal society in which men should live as members of one family and not as enemies. Coleridge and Southey thought of founding such a society in America on the Susquehanna River. In 1841, the year after He Dial was begun, Mr. George Ripley proposed to his “ Trans- cendental ” friends in Boston a plan by which an asso- ciation might be formed “ in which the members . . . should live together as brothers, seeking one another’s elevation and spiritual growth ” (Channing). The com- munity took the name of “ The Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education.” A stock company was formed. It numbered nearly seventy members. A farm of about 200 acres was bought at West Roxbury, Mass, (the birth-place of General Warren and the death-place of Bishop Eliot). The principle of the organization was co- operation, instead of competition, the members sharing jointly in the profits. Among the members were George Ripley, Charles A. Dana, George W. Curtis, Margaret Fuller, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. There were many other interested persons who were frequent visitors to the community, but who never identified themselves with it. Among them were Emerson, Theodore -Parker, W. H. Channing, A. B. Alcott, and C. P. Cranch. The mem- bers sowed, reaped, and gathered into barns ; taught Latin and Greek, read lectures, and wrote poems. The Har- binger was a weekly literary journal conducted by them. This idyllic life continued about five years. On March 3," 1846, a fire destroyed the main building, causing a loss of nearly seven thousand dollars, and the community was dissolved. (Brook Farm is important in our history be- cause it brought together some of the best minds of New England, and engaged them in common studies and in the stimulating interchange of ideas. When it broke up these men and women carried the thoughts of Emerson and the 6 82 AMERICAN LITERATURE. culture of the society into every profession of American life. Members of Brook Farm Community. — George Ripley, the founder of the community, was born in Green- field, Mass., Oct. 3, 1802, and died in New York City July 4, 1880. He was a generous helper of all aspirants after literary fame. Ripley and Charles A. Dana (1819 ) edited together the New American Cyclopaedia. The work was begun in 1857 and completed in 1863. Dana was managing editor of the New York Tribune 1847-62. Under his management The Tribune became the chief organ of the antislavery movement. In 1868, Dana published the first number of the New York Sun, of which paper he is still the editor. George W illiam Curtis was born in Providence, R. I. ; Feb. 24, 1824. He accompanied his father to New York in 1839, and was employed for a year as a clerk in a mer- cantile house of that city. He was eighteen months at Brook Farm, and two years on a farm in Concord, Mass. In 1846 he went abroad, and for four years travelled ex- tensively, not only in Europe, but in Egypt and the East. After his return, in 1850, he became one of the editors of The Tribune. For many years he was a popular lecturer and effective political orator. In 1853 he began to publish in Harper's Monthly the famous series of essays called the “ Editor’s Easy Chair.” Since 1857 he has been the prin- cipal editor of Harper's Weekly. Curtis’s books are Nile Notes of a Howadji (1851), The JHowadji in Syria (1852), Lotus-Eating (1852), Potiphar Papers (1853), Prue and I (1856), Trumps (1862). Curtis has a style of rare beauty and of almost magic charm. It is hard to define the pensive, dreamy nature of his delightful sketches. It is prose that passes into poetry. It is a world from which all common and homely things have disappeared. Quaint fancy, delicate humor, ele- gance, and refinement breathe in every page of Prue and I THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 83 and the Howadji. Like the old bookkeeper in Prue and 7, Curtis builds in all his books his castles in Spain. “ They stand lofty and fair, in a luminous, golden atmosphere, a little hazy and dreamy perhaps, like the Indian summer.” Trumps (a novel) and The Potiphar Papers are sharp satires upon the hollowness and sham of New York society life. The former contains a good description of Dr. Channing. His two books of travel are full of the spirit and romance of the gorgeous East. Margaret Puller was born in Cambridge, Mass., May 23, 1810. She received a careful education. Her wide culture and her conversational powers made her a welcome guest at the meetings of Emerson and Ripley and Chan- ning and Freeman Clarke. She edited The Dial , made numerous translations from the German, and wrote Sum - mer on the Lakes. In 1844 she became literary critic of the New York Tribune. For two busy years she continued to live in New York. Her articles in The Tribune covered a wide range of subjects, and she treated them in a strong, masculine man- ner. In 1847 she was in Rome. She married the Marquis Ossoli, and aided the Italian liberals in their struggle for independence. After the capture of Rome by the French, she and her husband escaped from the city, and in May, 1850, they sailed for America. The vessel was wrecked upon Fire Island, and Margaret Fuller, her husband, and her child were drowned. Her life had been so spent in philanthropy that her literary productions were not in pro- portion to her genius. She published Woman in the Nine- teenth Century (1844) and Papers on Literature and Art (1846). Margaret Fuller is the original of Zenobia in Hawthorne’s Blithedale Romance. The Concord Writers. — Concord, Mass., is the village of Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. Its literary and historical associations are more numerous and interesting 84 AMERICAN LITERATURE. than those of any other place in America. It is the “ cradle of American liberty ” and the birthplace* of the antislavery movement. The great men and women who made it their home have made the name of Concord famous through the world. The Transcendental Club, which had its first meeting in Dr. Ripley’s house in Bos- ton, in 1836, met frequently in Concord. Curtis worked on a farm in Concord township. Emerson made the village his home in 1834, and was the magnet which drew all thoughtful minds thither. The principal Concord writers after Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, were Amos Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, W. H. Channing, and Theodore Parker. A. B. Alcott (1799-1888) was born in Wolcott, Conn. In 1828 he opened a school in Boston. His methods of teaching and of discipline were novel. Instead of taking a flogging themselves when they did wrong, his students were to flog him. After his removal to Concord he de- voted himself, in his visionary way, to various reforms in education and in civil institutions. He emphasized the necessity of a purely vegetable diet. He attempted to found a community similar to Brook Farm, on an estate near Harvard, Mass., called “ Fruitlands,” but failed. He published Tablets (1868), Concord Days (1872), Table Talk (1877), Sonnets and Canzonets (1877). His daughter, Louisa May Alcott (1832-88), Avrote Little Women (1867), An Old-Fashioned Girl (1869), Little Men (1871), Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag (1871-82), Spinning- Wheel Stories (1884). Miss Alcott died March 6, 1888, two days after her father. Theodore Parker was born in Lexington, Mass., Aug. 24, 1810. His early life was a continual struggle with pov- erty. Through all difficulties he pursued with unalterable zeal his determination to obtain a thorough education. In 1837 he was ordained as minister at West Roxbury. At THE A WAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 85 Brook Farm the busy clergyman met the best minds of America. His thirst for knowledge was amply gratified by the new society in which he found himself. In 1846 he was called to larger usefulness in Boston. Here his suc- cess was great. His broad humanity, intense convic- tions, and heroic nature led him to support all movements designed to elevate or ameliorate the condition of the peo- ple. He was interested in questions of labor, poverty, and temperance. No one in the pulpit did more during the struggle against slavery. He was ceaselessly at work with tongue and pen arousing the conscience and strength- ening the sentiment of the North. He did the work of many men until, exhausted by his own tremendous labors, he was forced to go abroad. The relief came too late, and on May 10, 1860, he died in Florence, Italy. Parker was not a literary character. He was a thinker and doer. He wrote much, but never with a literary inten- tion. His complete works have been published in ten volumes (1870). The Channings. — William H. Changing and William Ellery Channing, nephews of Dr. W. E. Channing, were disciples of Emerson and frequent visitors at Concord. The former was a vigorous antislavery orator ; the latter has published five volumes of poems- and a Life of Thoreau. Henry David Thoreau [pronounced Tho-ro']. — Many authors have helped to make Concord famous, but Tho- reau only was born there. He was the most original cha- racter among his distinguished townspeople, and has as permanent a place in literature as any of them. He was born July 12, 1817. His grandfather came to America from the Isle of Jersey. Henry was sent to school in Boston and in Concord, and was graduated from Harvard in 1837. He was averse to learning a trade or profession. His later life was spent in writing, lec- turing, and reading a few favorite authors. Surveying 86 AMERICAN LITERATURE \ and pencil-making furnished him with the few necessa- ries of his modest living. But Thoreau was a born natu- ralist. He stood nearer to Nature than do ordinary men. He read her secrets by some fine instinct. The pleasures and ambitions of the world had no fascinations for him. He despised wealth and rank and social reputation. He was at home in wild nature and on friendly terms with all its wild inhabitants. In 1845 he built with his own hands, on the shore of Walden Pond, in the neighborhood of Con- cord, a rudely-timbered hut. It had but one room, ten feet wide and fifteen feet long. Here Thoreau lived for two years and two months, during which time his expenses were but $68.76. So near was he to Nature’s heart that squirrels played about his shoulders, the partridge fear- lessly entered his woodland hermitage, and the fish al- lowed him to take them from the water into his hand. “ He named all the birds without the gun.” He had the Indian’s knowledge of woodcraft and of the times and sea- sons of flowers and animals. Sometimes he journeyed with the Indians, accompany- ing them in their canoes or climbing with them among the mountains of Maine. Everything in nature had secret lessons for him, from the blossoming of one of his favorite flowers, like the prince’s pine, to a rude arrowhead or stone hatchet telling tales of the earlier owners of the continent. His Books. — A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers (1849) was Thoreau’s first published book. It met with so poor a sale that nearly all the copies were returned to him by the publishers. It was then that he said that he had a library of nine hundred volumes, “ seven hundred of which I wrote myself.” His next book was Walden (1854) # It was his best, and is now his most popular, work. The old hut by the pond has long since disappeared, but on its site is a pile of stones for ever increasing in size, as every visitor adds to the cairn another memorial stone. THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. ' 87 Thoreau died May 6, 1862 ; he was buried in the famous Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord, where rest Emerson and Hawthorne. After his death five other books were printed from his manuscripts. They were Excursions in Field and Forest (1863), The Maine Woods (1864), Cape Cod (1865), Letters to Various Persons (1865) A Yankee in Canada (1866). His Style. — Thoreau’s manner of writing was much like Emerson’s. Pie unconsciously acquired from his great friend many points of style, and particularly the use of the brief sentence packed with meaning. His minute descriptions, however, his acute observations, and his gen- uine love of nature and of solitude are entirely his own. Single sentences from his note-books are more interest- ing than his longer writings. They show the Emersonian faculty of casting an idea into a few words. For example : “ Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” “ One may well feel chagrined when he finds he can do nearly all he can conceive.” “ Noth- ing goes by luck in composition.” “ The best you can write will be the best you are.” Nathaniel Hawthorne. — The finest products of the American genius in literature are Emerson and Haw- thorne. The former was the master-mind who fixed the character and determined the direction of American thought. The latter is our foremost literary artist. In him all that was weird and romantic in the superstitions of Puritanism flowered into the finest art. He expressed the strange imaginations of his beautiful and original genius in a style unsurpassed for vividness, subtilty, and varied melody. His work is permanent ; his fame is secure. He is the most eminent representative of the American spirit in literature. In Salem, Mass., Hawthorne was born July 4, 1804. His family had dwelt in the grim old town since 1636, when William Hathorne removed thither from Dorches- 88 AMERICAN LITERATURE. ter. The life of the great romancer is closely bound up with the ancient sea-town. In his youth it was already falling to decay. It was haunted by memories of witches and strange stories of the sea. It is the Salem of Endicott and the sombre traditions of the first Puritans. All the surroundings of Hawthorne’s childhood assisted his loneliness and impressed his imagination. He lived in a strange world of his own creation. His father w T as a melancholy and silent man, who died when Nathaniel was but four years old. His mother lived a sad and se- cluded life. And over all brooded the dark traditions of the ancient family. Two of the early Hawthornes had been among the stern judges who had inflicted unnatural punishments upon Quakers and witches. Other members of the family in the olden time had followed the sea and left behind them legends of peril and of strange adven- ture. Hawthorne’s first education was received from Dr. Joseph E. Worcester, the author of the Dictionary. In 1821 he entered Bowdoin College, in the same class with Longfellow, and a year after Franklin Pierce. After his graduation he returned to Salem and resumed his lonely, dreaming life. He went nowhere, he saw no one. He worked in his room by day, reading and writing ; at twi- light he wandered out along the seashore or through the darkening streets of the town. For twelve years, from 1825 to 1837, this lonely life continued. He was uncon- sciously preparing for the most splendid literary fame. He was forming his character and his style. His first novel was Fanshawe , published at his own ex- pense in 1826. It was not successful, and was withdrawn from circulation. His first important book, Twice-Told Tales , appeared in 1837. George Bancroft, the historian, found him a place in 1839 in the Salem custom-house, from which, two years after, he was dismissed when the Whigs came into power. THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 89 He joined the Brook Farm community, but was never in sympathy with the movement nor a believer in the Transcendental notions of Emerson and his school. His Notebooks are full of his discontent with the life at West Roxbury. “ I went,” he said, “ to live in Arcady, arid found myself up to the chin in a barnyard. His observa- tions took literary shape in The Blithedale Romance (1852), the only literary memorial ot the singular Brook Farm Association. In Concord. — After his marriage in 1842, Hawthorne made his home in the “ old manse ” in Concord, Mass. He was fond of old houses about which the fancy might weave strange romances. This historic house had been the home of William Emerson, the patriot-pastor ; in it Ralph Waldo Emerson had written Nature ; and now Hawthorne wrote in it the tales which were collected in the Mosses from an Old Manse (1846). The second series of Twice-Told Tales appeared in 1845. In the following year Hawthorne, whose income was decreasing, returned to Salem and was appointed surveyor of the port, a position which he held for three years. During this time he wrote, and in 1850 published, The Scarlet Letter , the greatest novel ever written in America. The House of the Seven Gables was his next book (1851), and in the same year appeared The Wonder- Book and the Snow Image . In 1852, Hawthorne bought the house in Concord which is now most intimately associated with his memory. He called it “ Wayside it was next to “ Appleclump,” the home of Alcott. Thoreau had told him that the house had once been occupied by a man who believed that he would never die. Out of this idea Hawthorne created Septimius Felton , which was published by his daughter after his death. In Europe. — In 1853, after his friend and schoolfellow, Franklin Pierce, was elected President, Hawthorne was ap- pointed consul at Liverpool. He was in Europe seven 90 AMERICAN LITERATURE . years, the first four being spent in England. His close observation of foreign life appeared in the English Note- books , Our Old Home , and French and Italian Notebooks. In 1860 he published The Marble Faun , the scene of which was laid in Italy. Death. — Hawthorne died May 18, 1864, while travelling with ex-President Pierce in the White Mountains. He is buried in Concord Cemetery in the near neighborhood of Emerson and Thoreau. Hawthorne’s Character. — Hawthorne was shy and solitary, but he was not morbid nor cynical. His life was almost devoid of incident. He was happy in his domestic relations. His character was as pure and as clear as his work. From his ancestors he had inherited the Puritan moods, which he wonderfully intermingled with his artis- tic genius. His Work. — Hawthorne began with short stories and ended with complete romances. The collections of short stories are Twice-Told Tales , Mosses from an Old Manse, Snow Image , Wonder-Book , and Tanglewood Tales . They contain three classes of tales — those of pure fancy and allegory, those which relate to early New England history, and stories for children. To the first belong such creations as “ Rappaccini’s Daughter,” “ Young Goodman Brown,” “ Drowne’s Wooden Image,” “ Roger Malvin’s Burial,” “ David Swan,” “ The Minister’s Black Veil,” etc. To the second belong “ Legends of the Province House,” “ Endi- cott and the Red Cross,” “ The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” “ The Gray Champion,” etc. The third is represented by The Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales. All these tales exhibit the same powerful imagination, and many of them leave an impression of gloom and mystery. Hawthorne is the most imaginative writer of the century. His fancy plays upon all his subjects, and makes much of the homely materials on which he relied for his effects. The characters of the short stories are scarcely human, THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 91 They are types or symbols. They represent qualities of mind and conditions of conscience. Hawthorne’s stories are stories of conscience. Sin and its consequences are as much present to his imagination as they were to the con- sciousness of his Puritan ancestors. Temptation, crime, and the penalty of guilt are the subjects which he analyzes and describes. Hawthorne was most successful in his New England stories. He had a fine and unerring instinct in dealing with colonial history. The records and the legends of the colonial days were caught by him just as they were disappearing, and fixed for ever in literature. The stern and black-browed Puritans form the background of his art, and the ineradicable stain of blood which rests upon the persecutors of the witches tinges the current of his best and most immortal stories. There were opportunities for a romancer in such a background far greater than Irving could find upon the Hudson, or Cooper upon the New York frontier. The stories for children were among his most careful writings. First came Tlie Whole History of Grandfather's Chair (1841). The True Stories from History and Biography was published in 1852, Wonder- Book in 1851, and its con- tinuation, Tanglewood Tales, in 1853. The latter two tell in simple language stories from classical mythology — “ The Golden Apples,” “The Gorgon’s Head,” and the like. Hawthorne’s great novels are The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun. The first three are American ; the last is Italian in scene and subject. The Scarlet Letter is his masterpiece. It is the best product of American literature. It ranks with the few really great novels of the world. It is a sombre story of crime and of repentance. There are but four characters, and around them is the chill atmosphere of Puritanism. The House of Seven Gables is a larger, more elaborate, 92 AMERICAN LITERATURE. and suggestive work than The Scarlet Letter , but it lacks the unity and completeness of the latter. Into The Blithedale Romance Hawthorne put his observations of hu- man character while living among the Brook Farmers. It contains the splendid and forceful character of Zenobia (Hawthorne had Margaret Fuller in mind when he drew this fine character). The drowning of Zenobia is the most tragic chapter Hawthorne ever wrote. The Marble Faun contains some of Hawthorne’s finest writing. The descriptions of Italian life and scenery and art are perfect in their poetic grace and beauty. It is again a story of temptation and of crime, and, as in The Scarlet Letter , there are but four important characters. The young Italian, Donatello, is the faun , so called from his fancied resemblance to the statue of the sylvan god by Praxiteles in the Capitol at Rome. Unfinished Work. — Hawthorne at the time of his death was busy with a novel to be called The Dolliver Ro- mance. A part of it was published after his death under the title of Septimius Felton ; or , The Elixir of Life. Eternity of earthly existence is the theme, the same that Haw- thorne had already employed in his “ twice-told tale ” of “ Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.” Two other fragments were posthumously published : The Ancestral Footstep and Dr. Grimshawe^s Secret. Both of them turn upon the legend of an indelible bloody foot- print. It is to these unfinished tales of mysterious imag- ination that Longfellow referred in his lines on the death of Hawthorne.* His Style. — Hawthorne was not a philosopher like Emerson, but he was our first, and is still our greatest, lit- erary artist. His style was clear, simple, and pictorial. His skill in varying the construction of his sentences was greater than Emerson’s, and his feeling for words equally * “ The unfinished window in Aladdin’s tower Unfinished must remain.” THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 93 sure. He was slow to compose, and slower to print, prun- ing, correcting, and refining, and timidly submitting the final work to the world. His principal fault was his fondness for allegory. His stories and his characters tend to lose human interest and to fade into symbols. His range was limited. But within his limits he has had no equal and has won deathless fame. Julian Hawthorn© (1846 — ), the son of the romancer, has published several novels. Among them are Garth , Archibald Malmaison , Ellice Quentin , Sebastian Strome , For- tune’s Fool , and Dust . He has also written the biography of his father and mother. Antislavery. — The last phase of the great humanitarian movement was the antislavery enthusiasm. In this im- portant cause Concord and the Concord writers played an important part. It was at Concord that, in 1836, a public meeting was held to celebrate the liberation of the West Indian slaves by Great Britain. John Brown, the hero of Harper’s Ferry, started from Concord for the scene of his desperate adventure in 1858. Almost all the friends of Emerson, with the notable ex- ception of Hawthorne, were abolitionists. The movement had for its leader William Lloyd Garrison ; for its states- man, Charles Sumner; for its orator, Wendell Phil- lips ; for its novelist, Harriet Beecher Stowe ; and for its poet, John Greenleaf Whittier. 1. Garrison (1805-79) founded in Boston, on Jan. 1, 1831, The Liberator , a weekly antislavery journal, which he edited for thirty-five years. It was through his agita- tion that slavery became a burning question. He formed numerous societies, and created with his own pen a large antislavery literature. In 1835 he was dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope about his body. 2. Charles Sumner was born in Boston Jan. 6, 1811, and died in Washington Mar. 11, 1874. He received his 94 AMERICAN LITERATURE. education at the Boston Latin School, Harvard Univer- sity, and the Law School. He rapidly took the place among scholars and men of letters to which his learning and genius entitled him. In 1837 he visited Europe, made hosts of distinguished friends, and was everywhere received and admired. Carlyle called him “ Popularity Sumner.” In 1840 he returned to America. On July 4, 1845, he delivered the first of his great ora- tions. It was upon “The True Grandeur of Nations.” It aimed at the settlement by arbitration of international dif- ficulties. His speeches against slavery began in the same year. In 1856 he delivered a stirring speech on the “ Crime against Kansas.” Two days later he was attacked at his desk in the Senate Chamber by Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina, and terribly beaten with a bludgeon. It was not until 1859 that he could resume his seat in the Senate. Sumner’s complete works have been published in fifteen volumes. His brother, Horace Sumner, was drowned with Mar- garet Fuller and her husband in the wreck of the “ Eliza- beth,” on Fire Island, in 1850. 3. Wendell Phillips, next to Webster among Ameri- can orators, was born in Boston Nov. 29, 1811, and died there Feb. 2, 1884. He was educated at Harvard, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. In 1835 he saw Garrison dragged through the streets by a murderous mob, and his mind was then made up to devote himself to the abolition cause. In 1837, at a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, he made his first thrilling speech against slavery. Until the end of the struggle he fought side by side with Garrison and used all his splendid powers of oratory to arouse the country. His most celebrated literary addresses were, “ Toussaint l’Ouverture ” and “ The Lost Arts.” THE AWAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 95 4. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812 ) was born in Litchfield, Conn., June 14, 1812. She was the daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher, a distinguished clergyman. From 1824 to 1832 she lived in Hartford as pupil and teacher. In 1836 she married Prof. Calvin E. Stowe. She inherited from her father a hearty hatred of slavery. While living with her husband in Cincinnati she often received and protected runaway slaves. When the Fugitive-Slave Law passed, Mrs. Stowe felt keenly the indifference of the North, and began to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin , the book which has car- ried her name to all parts of the world. Richard Hil- dreth had published in 1836 Archy Moore , an antislavery novel, but the success which now attended Uncle Tom’s Cabin was without parallel. It was first published in the National Era at Washington, from June, 1851, to April, 1852, and in the latter year it was issued in book-form in Boston. It has been translated into every language of Europe — even into Armenian, Bohemian, Wallachian, and Welsh. It has been dramatized and acted in most of the theatres of the world. In the United States alone a half million copies were sold in five years. In 1853 appeared A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin . In this year Mrs. Stowe went abroad for her health, and on her return published Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands . Mrs. Stowe is still living in Hartford, Conn. Her other works were Dred : A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), The Minister’s Wooing (1859), The Pearl of Orr’s Island (1862), Agnes of Sorrento (1862), Little Foxes (1865), Old- Town Folks (1869), Sam Lawson’s Fireside Stories (1871), My Wife and I (1872), We and Our Neighbors (1875), Poganuc People (1878). Her Work. — Mrs. Stowe was never a very careful or skilful writer, but she was always clear and animated. She got much of her style from frequent reading of Sir Walter Scott. For many years she wrote and rewrote, cor- 96 AMERICAN LITERATURE. rected and destroyed, until at last she acquired the power she so much desired of being able to say exactly what she thought. Her books belong to three classes : those that relate to slavery, those that treat of New England character, and those which contain practical suggestions as to the every- day business of life. The first group contains the famous Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Bred (sometimes called Nina Gordon ). The second group has for its finest specimens The Min- ister’s Wooing and Old-Town Folks. Either of these is su- perior in style to Uncle Tom, whose fame depends upon the subject. The practical books, with their useful and pleasant hints as to dress, cooking, housekeeping, and a thousand things of the household, are Little Foxes , House-and-Home Papers, etc. 5. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 ) is as distinc- tively the poet of New England as Hawthorne is its romancer. Although a member of the sect of the Quakers, who were hated and persecuted by the Puritans, he has done more than any other American writer, save Hawthorne, to preserve in literature the traits and traditions of the first New Englanders. He is, moreover, the chief represen- tative in poetry of the historic struggle which resulted in the overthrow of slavery and which preceded the Civil War. His Early Life. — Whittier was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the Valley of the Merrimac, . Dec. 17, 1807. His ancestors were Quakers, and he has all his life adhered to the principles of the sect. His opportunities for education were few and meagre. He worked on his father’s farm until 1827, when, with his scanty earnings, he attended Haverhill Academy for six months. He then taught in a district school, and returned for another half year at Haverhill. THE A WAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 97 While still a farm-hand he became the owner of a copy of Burns’s poems, to the reading of which may be traced his first literary impulse. His first publications were anonymous contributions to William Lloyd Garrison’s Free Press. It was in this way also that he became ac- quainted with the reformer whom he was destined so greatly to assist. Antislavery Advocate. — After a rather large experi- ence as a journalist, Whittier consecrated himself to the historic movement which was then agitating New Eng- land. He became in 1836 secretary of the American Anti- slavery Society. In 1838 he edited the Pennsylvania Free- man in Philadelphia. In the following year his press was destroyed and his office burned by a mob. In 1840, Whittier made his home at Amesbury, Mass., where he has ever since resided. His Work. — Whittier’s first volume was Legends of Neiv England (1831). It was in prose and verse. In 1836 he published Mogg Megone , and soon after the Bridal of Pennacook , in both of which he drew his subjects from the life of the New England colonists and their relations to the Indians. From 1838 to 1889 he has been an industrious writer. His works fall into three groups or classes : First, the poems of freedom ; second, those relating to New England history, to witchcraft and colonial traditions ; third, rural ballads and idylls. (1) Whittier is, first of all, the poet of freedom. In his poem entitled “ Proem,” after apologizing for the imper- fections of his style, he declares — “ Yet here at least an earnest sense, Of human right and weal is shown, A hate of tyranny intense And hearty in its vehemence, As if my brother’s pain and sorrow were my own.” 7 98 AMERICAN LITERATURE. And adds that, with a love as deep and strong as Milton’s, he lays his best gifts upon the shrine of Freedom. This passionate love of liberty, and this earnest “ sense of hu- man right ” swell in the sincere patriotism of “ Barbara Frietchie,” in the exulting joy of “ Laus Deo,” and in the scorching indignation of “ Ichabod ” [written on the fall of Webster]. The antislavery lyrics are passionate, but not artistic. He gained his reputation with the Voices of Freedom (1849), but most of the poems had only a tem- porary interest and value. They aroused public opinion by their fervor and invective, but they had none of the greater merits that ensure permanent fame. Among the poems inspired by the idea of liberty are verses addressed to the famous leaders of revolution in both Europe and America. Channing, Sumner, Elliott, Garibaldi, and Kossuth are thus addressed. But the finest among them are the verses on the death of Garrison. (2) The second group includes many of Whittier’s best ballads. These simple and spirited poems have done in verse for colonial romance what Hawthorne did in prose in the Twice-Told Tales or Scarlet Letter. Whittier is the greatest of American ballad-writers. He has a story to tell, and tells it vividly. Among the best of these roman- tic songs are “ Cassandra South wick,” “ The King’s Mis- sive,” “ Calef in Boston,” “ Mabel Martin,” “ How the Wo- men Went from Dover,” “ The Witch of Wenham,” “ Mar- guerite,” and “ Skipper Ireson’s Ride.” (3) The third group consists entirely of the pastoral poems, or ballads and idylls of rural life. They contain the very heart and soul of New England. They are faithful and loving pictures of humble life, simple and peaceful in their subject and their style. The masterpiece of this group is Snow-Bound. Other conspicuous poems are, “The Barefoot Boy,” “Telling the Bees,” “Among the Hills,” etc. It is poems of this kind, relating the sim- ple experiences of homely characters, that have carried THE A WAKENING OF NEW ENGLAND. 99 him to the hearts of the people and made him, next to Longfellow, the most popular of American poets. Some of Whittier’s ballads take their subjects from his- tory, like the splendid Barclay of Ury. The longer poems of Whittier are, In War Times (1863), The Tent on the Beach (1867), The Pennsylvania Pilgrim (1872). His prose works are, Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal (1849), delightful sketches of life and character in the old colonial days; Old Portraits and Modern Sketches (1850); and Literary Recreations (1854). His Character and Style. — Two things must be re- membered in studying the writings of Whittier : first, his scanty education ; second, his love of freedom and his fel- low-men. His early surroundings were simple and frugal. He has pictured them in Snow-Bound. Poverty, the necessity of laboring upon the farm, his Quaker creed, his busy later life, all conspired against his growth in knowledge and literary culture. And this limitation of knowledge is at once his charm and his defect. It has led him to write as no other poet could upon the dear simplicity of the New England farmstead. He has written from the heart, not from the head. He has composed popular pastorals, not hymns of culture. A certain charm resides in his homely words and home- spun phrases. There is a pleasure and a satisfaction in the freshness of his verse which, we seek in vain in the labored ornaments and polished art of more highly-culti- vated masters. It is also the obvious cause of his chief defects. He has himself stated his imperfections and their causes in the first five stanzas of “ Proem.” He has not mastered the melodies of verse as other American writers, more widely read than he, have done. His style is uniform and his measure monotonous. Whittier is a poet of nature. He has painted the land- 100 AMERICAN LITERATURE. scapes of New England as Bryant has the larger features of the continent. “ Salisbury’s level marshes,” “ the low green prairies of the sea,” and “all the little world of sights and sounds whose girdle w r as the parish bounds,” are the materials out of which Whittier has drawn his “ golden woof-thread of romance.” CHAPTER V. Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell. The three names that are here bracketed together repre- sent the best culture and the highest ideals of American literature. They are the finest outcome of the intellectual strivings of New England. Two of them were graduates of Harvard College, and all of them Were members of its faculty. Two of them, Holmes and Lowell, still live — the first our most popular man of letters; the other the best living illustration of the possibilities of American culture. And he who has passed from us was the most universally known of all our poets, reaching the hearts and raising the lives of millions of his countrymen. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, “ the Forest City,” on the 27th of February, 1807. He was a descendant of the John Alden and Priscilla Mullens whose lives he wove into that loveliest of Puri- tan romances, The Courtship of Miles Standish. In his poem “ My Lost Youth ” he gathered his memories of his native town. Among other things, he recalled the sea- fight in 1812 in Portland harbor between the “ Boxer” and the “ Enterprise,” when the commanders of both the Brit- ish and the American brig were killed and laid “ in their graves o’erlooking the tranquil bay.” He had the range of his father’s fine library, and was 101 102 AMERICAN LITERATURE. always a great reader, dwelling with especial fondness on Irving’s Sketch-Book. From Portland Academy, Longfellow went in 1822 to Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. He entered the same class with Hawthorne, and between the two sprang up a lifelong friendship. Teaching and Travelling. — In 1825 he was graduated from Bowdoin, and was almost immediately appointed professor of modern languages in his alma mater. He was allowed a year for European travel, that he might prepare himself for his new office. He visited France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, and returned in 1829 laden with the spoils of foreign study. He was the first to establish permanently in our literature the scholarship of Europe. In 1834 he was appointed professor of modern languages at Harvard, to succeed Mr. George Ticknor. In this year and the next he published Outre- Mer , a series of sketches of his travels. He had previously published (1833) his first book, Coplas de Manrique , a translation from the Spanish. In 1835, Longfellow again went abroad, and worked hard at the languages and literatures of the Old World. When he began his new duties at Harvard in 1836 he made his home in Cambridge, in the old Craigie House, which had been the home of Washington when he took command of the army. In 1843, after a third visit to Europe, he married Frances Appleton, the heroine (Mary Ashburton) of his Hyperion. In 1861 his wife was burned to death. He sailed for Europe for the last time in 1868, and re- ceived the highest literary honors from Oxford and from Cambridge. He died March 24, 1882, at Cambridge, Mass. Prose Works. — Longfellow’s happy and -studious life was devoted to poetic composition. Nothing interfered with the continuous progress of his literary work. In the LONGFELLOW \ HOLMES \ AND LOWELL. 103 long list of his publications are three prose works : Outre Mer , Hyperion , and Kavanagh. Outre Mer (1835) was a description of his first European travels. It contained sketches, in the manner of Irving, of France, Spain, and Italy. Hyperion (1839) also relates some of the experiences and meditations of foreign travel, but in the form of a romance. The book is slightly autobiographic. Paul Flemming, the hero, is Longfellow himself. Mary Ashburton, the heroine, is Frances Appleton, who four years later became his wife. But the simple love-story makes only a small part of the book. The rest contains original translations of German poems, criticisms on Goethe and Richter and other Ger- man poets, and legends of the castled Rhine. It is a true prose-poem, crowded with poetic imagery and full of the poetic spirit. l\.avanagh , a novel, was published in 1849. It was less important than Hyperion , but also less faulty in style. It was not so cloyed with sentiment, and showed a finer lite- rary sense. It was a prose-idyll of New England village life. His Poetry. — Longfellow’s first collection of poems was the Voices of the Night (1839). In this volume were such famous poems as “ The Psalm of Life,” “ The Reaper and the Flowers,” “ Footsteps of Angels,” and the“ Beleaguered City.” They all illustrate the German influence which was so strong in Longfellow’s life, and show the sadness and the sentiment which mark the German romanticism. “ The Psalm of Life ” is not a great poem, but it became immediately popular — was sung and preached in churches and repeated by the people, until it was the most familiar of American poems. Ballads and Other Poems was published in 1841, and con- tained “ The Skeleton in Armor,” “ Wreck of the Hes- perus,” “ Excelsior,” “ The Village Blacksmith,” “Maiden- hood,” etc. 104 AMERICAN LITERATURE . Poems on Slavery appeared in 1842. The earnest passion which belonged to Whittier’s lyrics of slavery was absent from these more studied compositions. In 1843, Longfellow made an experiment in dramatic writing and published The Spanish Student. Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845) was a collection of translations (many made by himself) from the representa- tive writers of Europe. In 1846 was published The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems . It included such well-known poems as “ The Old Clock on the Stairs,” “ The Arsenal at Springfield,” and “ The Arrow and the Song.” The Seaside and the Fireside (1850) had in it “ The Build- ing of the Ship,” so well known by every school-boy, and one of the best examples of Longfellow’s style. The Golden Legend (1851), a long poem, is laid in the thirteenth century, on the Rhine. It is a medieval ro- mance dramatically treated. The versatile genius of the poet is best illustrated in this work. Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863) is a series of stories mod- elled after the plan of Chaucer. The prologue introduces to the reader the several characters of the book. They are the Landlord, the Student, a Spanish Jew, a Theologian, a Norse Musician (Ole Bull), a Sicilian, and a Poet (T. W. Parsons). A thread of comment unites the many stories of this delightful volume. Longfellow was a charming story-teller, and these tales are told in the clearest and yet most varied verse. The first story in the book is as familiar as “ The Psalm of Life.” It is “ Paul Revere’s Ride.” The best of the stories are the legends of “ King Olaf.” The New England Tragedies (1868) employed those sub- jects with which the genius of Hawthorne had done such wonderful things. But Longfellow was not successful in his studies in the sombre chapters of witchcraft, and these two tragedies, “ John Endicott ” and “ Giles Corey of the LONGFELLOW , HOLMES , AND LOWELL. 105 Salem Farms,” did not add much to the author’s reputa- tion. The Divine Tragedy (1872) was a dramatic study of the life of Christ. Three Books of Song (1872) contained a second series of the “ Tales of a Wayside Inn ” and the drama of “ Judas Maccabeus.” His last poems were The Hanging of the Crane (1874), a short poem written in honor of T. B. Aldrich (see page 154) ; The Masque of Pandora (1875), a volume of miscellaneous poems which included “ Morituri Salutamus ” and the “ Sonnet to Summer;” Keramos (1878), a poem of the pot- ter; Ultima Thule (1880). A tragedy called Michael Angelo was published after Longfellow’s death. Three American Poems. — Evangeline , Hiawatha , and The Courtship of Miles Standish are the best and the most characteristic of Longfellow’s works. The first is the best idyll in our literature ; the second is the epic of the red race of America ; the last is a poetic romance of old colonial days in New England. Evangeline was Longfellow’s first long poem. It appeared in 1847. It was based upon a pathetic chapter in Ameri- can history. Acadia (or Nova Scotia), which is the scene of the story, was in 1755 inhabited by certain French colonists called “ French Neutrals.” When the Massachu- setts men captured the French forts on the Bay of Fundy the Acadians were condemned as rebels and were ordered to leave the province. In the exile which followed fami- lies and lovers were separated, perhaps never to be re- united. In Longfellow’s precious poem the Acadian maiden, Evangeline, searches for many years for her lover Gabriel, from whom she had been separated, and finds him at last in a hospital, dying. The poem is written in hexameter verses, a metre rarely used in English poetry. There were great difficulties in the way of writing a long 106 AMERICAN LITERATURE . poem in this classic measure. But Longfellow’s success was at least as great as Clough’s or Kingsley’s. His verses were not accurate according to classical tradition, but they were musical, and their style was not a classic imitation, but a modern invention. Hiawatha , the American epic, was published in 1855. Out of the rude legends of savage tribes Longfellow con- structed this splendid epic of the wilderness. It is the best of all his long poems. Like Hiawatha’s boat, “ the forest’s life is in it, all its mystery and its magic.” Freneau had been the first to make use in literature of the romantic Indian life. Cooper had, in the Leather- Stocking Tales , given permanent life to the red man. Long- fellow gave an imaginative, original, and intensely interest- ing record of the ancient Indian traditions. The metre, which is admirably adapted to the subject, was derived from the Kalevala, the epic of Finland. It is unrhymed trochaic verse of eight syllables. The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858) is on a distinctly lower plane than either Evangeline or Hiawatha , but it is a delightful picture of the “old colony days in Plymouth, the land of the Pilgrims.” The metre is the same as that employed in Evangeline , and lends itself readily at times to the humorous flow of the story. The Divine Comedy. — America has produced four consummate translations of great poems — (1) Bryant’s Homer has already been referred to ; (2) Christopher Cranch translated the JEneid into blank verse in 1872; (3) Bayard Taylor’s Faust is the best translation ever made from the German ; and (4) Dante’s Divine Comedy has never been so successfully rendered into any language as by Longfellow into English in 1867. With the help of Lowell and Charles Eliot Norton, Longfellow studied critically every line of the great poem, and in his version of it preserved carefully the metre of the original. LONGFELLOW , HOLMES , AND LOWELL. 107 Character and Style. — Longfellow was the poet of every-day life. His poetry corresponded to his own good and generous nature. It was “ the voice of the kindest and gentlest heart that poet ever bore.” He represents the best American taste and feeling, but the deeper thoughts of our literature are not as well illus- trated in him as in other of our poets. He was early impressed by the songs and romances of Germany, and much of his pensive, dreamy thought and style was caught from that literature which he knew and loved so well. The first important factor in the consideration of his work is his extensive scholarship. He was the most widely read of all our poets. His life was spent in the still air of delightful studies. His poems are full of pleasing sur- prises to the scholar. Recollections of ancient Greek and Latin poetry or songs of troubadours and minnesingers are in them. But Longfellow was master of his learning. Although he drew his subjects, and often his style, from far-off sources, he was yet always clear and interesting . He wrote upon the common lessons of life, which com- mended him to the common people. His shorter poems were often sermons in song, like “ The Psalm of Life.” Another group of his poems was purely sentimental. In them there is a gentle and undefinable melancholy, “ a feeling of sadness and longing, that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.” Such are “The Day is Done,” “Footsteps of Angels,” “ The Reaper and the Flowers,” etc. It is these poems ' that bring Longfellow close to the heart of the less culti- vated classes. Longfellow wrote with a purely literary intention. He did, indeed, write a few antislavery poems, but they were artistic products, not passionate protests like Whittier’s. His literary knowledge and fine taste made him the most successful of our poets in the metrical arrangement of 108 AMERICAN LITERATURE. verse. He experimented with various metres, and usually with marked success. In Evangeline and The Courtship of Miles Standish he used the difficult hexameter ; in Hia- watha he used the singular eight-syllabled trochaic verse ; in the “ Skeleton in Armor ” he employed the vigorous measure of Drayton’s “ To the brave Cambrio-Britons and their Harp.” One peculiarity of the short poems is at once noticed. Each contains a single idea. “ The Beleaguered City,” “ The Arsenal at Springfield,” etc. owe their clearness, simplicity, and popularity to this trait. * Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of Longfellow’s style at all periods of his life is the constant presence of analogy. He is always discovering points of resemblance and suggesting comparisons. Hence the unusual number of similes and metaphors that crowd his poems. The word “ like ” occurs so frequently that it becomes tiresome. He visits the arsenal at Springfield, and a comparison of the building to a vast organ rises in his mind. He visits the glacier of the Rhone, and its shape reminds him of a glove ; forthwith it becomes (in Hyperion) “ a gauntlet of ice, which, centuries ago, Winter, the king of these moun- tains, threw down in defiance to the Sun ; and year by year the Sun strives in vain to lift it from the ground on the point of his glittering spear.” To him, “ The hooded clouds like friars Tell their beads in drops of rain.” And for him He sees “ The cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.” “ The darkness Fall from the wings of night, LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, AND LOWELL. 109 As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight.” Place in Literature. — Longfellow was not rugged and elemental like Bryant; he had not Bryant’s feeling for the colossal features of wild scenery. He was not pro- foundly thoughtful and transcendental like Emerson. He was not so earnestly and passionately sympathetic as Whittier. But he was our first artist in poetry. Bryant, Emerson, and Whittier commanded but a few stops of the grand instrument upon which they played ; Longfellow understood perfectly all its capabilities. ^ By his fortunate choice of subjects, and his clear, simple, and manly treatment of them, he spoke directly to the hearts of the people ; but, unlike Whittier, he also at- tracted to him by his broad culture another and more crit- ical audience. He is our most popular poet. He sways in the hearts of men and women whose sorrows have been soothed and lives raised by his gentle verse. “ Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction • That follows after prayer.” Longfellow’s Friends. — When Longfellow entered the faculty of Harvard College he gathered about him the best minds of Boston and Cambridge. With four of his friends he formed a social company called the “ Five of Clubs.” The members were, besides Longfellow, Charles Sumner, C. C. Felton, George S. Hillard, and H. R. Cleve- land. Among his other intimate friends were Louis Agassiz, T. W. Parsons, George Washington Greene, and James Russell Lowell. The Five of Clubs. — Cornelius Conway Felton (1807-62) was a most enthusiastic Greek scholar. He 110 AMERICAN LITERATURE. became professor of Greek at Harvard in 1832, and pro- fessor of Greek literature in 1834. He was appointed pres- ident of Harvard in 1860. He translated many foreign works and edited several Greek text-books. After his death were published Familiar Letters from Europe (1864) and Greece , Ancient and Modern (1867). George Stillman Hillard (1808-79) was a successful lawyer. He was associated with George Ripley in the editing of The Christian Register , and with Sumner in the publication of The Jurist. He delivered a number of public discourses of considerable merit. The best of them were a eulogy on Daniel Webster and an oration On the Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profession . His best work was Six Months in Italy (1853). He was the editor of a well-known series of Readers and the author of a Life of George Ticknor. Henry Russell Cleveland (1809-43) published Re- marks on the Classical Education of Boys (1834) and a Life of Henry Hudson. (For Sumner see page 93.) Louis Agassiz was born in Switzerland May 28, 1807. He came to this country in 1846. He was made professor of zoology and geology in the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge, Mass., in 1848. His industry and enthu- siasm in scientific study were enormous. His fame was equal to that of Cuvier or Humboldt. He became the most inspiring teacher of America, and the history of natural science in our country dates its rise from his lectures and enthusiastic zeal. He died in Cambridge, Mass., December 14, 1873. Thomas William Parsons (1819 ), after studying at the Boston Latin School, went to Italy and studied Italian literature. He commenced a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy , which he published complete in 1867. He published Ghetto di Roma , a volume of poems, in 1854. It contained the excellent lines “ On a Bust of LONGFELLOW \ HOLMES \ AND LOWELL. Ill Dante.” (Parsons was the Poet in The Tales of a Way- side Inn.) George Washington Greene (1811-83) was a grandson of General Nathanael Greene of Revolutionary fame. He entered Brown University, but left, on account of ill- health, before completing his course. In 1837 he was ap- pointed United States consul at Rome. In 1848 he was made professor of modern languages at Brown. He has also been professor of history at Cornell. He published Historical Studies (1850), History and Geography of the Mid- dle Ages (1851), Historical View of the American Revolution (1865), etc. One- of Longfellow’s last poems, “ Ultima Thule,” was dedicated to Greene. Oliver Wendell Holmes is both poet and prose-writer. He is a true New Englander, and has celebrated Boston, whose State-house he has called “ the hub of the solar system,” in all his writings. He was born in Cambridge, Mass., August 29, 1809. Among his schoolmates in the Cambridgeport Academy, which he attended from his tenth to his fifteenth year, were Margaret Fuller and Richard Henry Dana, Jr. He was sent to Harvard from the Andover Phillips Academy, and was graduated from the college in 1829. He was on the best terms of good fellowship with his fellow-collegians, and has commemorated the class in several of his best “ oc- casional ” poems. Among the members of his class were Benjamin Peirce, the mathematician and astronomer ; Dr. James Freeman Clarke; and Rev. Samuel F. Smith, who wrote “ My Country, ’tis of Thee.” Peirce, Smith, and others of the class are wittily described- in the poem “ The Boys.” His first poem, intended for a larger public than the college-students, was the eloquent lyric “ Old Iron- sides,” beginning “ Ay, tear her tattered ensign down.” It had been proposed to break up the old frigate Con- 112 AMERICAN LITERATURE. stitution, but Holmes’s stirring protest in 1830 saved the ship. Student of Medicine. — Holmes began the study of medicine in Boston in 1830. From 1833 to 1836 he studied in the medical schools of Europe. In the latter year he returned to America, received his degree from Harvard College, began the practice of his profession, and published his first volume of poems. The volume contained “ Poetry, a Metrical Essay,” “ The Last Leaf,” “ My Aunt,” and the “ Height of the Ridiculous.” In 1838 he was chosen professor of anatomy and physiology in Dart- mouth College. In 1847 he accepted a similar position in Harvard College. He has published several medical works : Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science (1861), Border Lines in Some Provinces of Medical Science (1862), Medical Essays (1883). Pros© Works. — The Atlantic Monthly was established in 1857. In that year Holmes began to publish in it the papers which have contributed most to his fame. They were republished in three books : The Autocrat of the Break- fast Table (1858), Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Poet at the Breakfast Table (1873). The first is the author’s masterpiece. Humor, satire, and scholarship are skilfully mingled in its graceful literary form. It also contains some of the best of Holmes’s poems, as “ The One-Horse Shay,” “ The Chambered Nautilus,” etc. A slight thread of story runs through the book. The scene is an Ameri- can boarding-house, with its typical characters. The cen- tral figure is the Autocrat, and the drollery and acute ob- servation and suggestive thoughts that run and sparkle in the book are the material and the result of his table- talk. The Professor at the Breakfast Table was not equal to its predecessor. The same plan was followed, but it lacked the freshness and originality of the incomparable first volume. LONGFELLOW , HOLMES , AND LOWELL . 113 The Poet at the Breakfast Table , which appeared after the lapse of some years, was somewhat better, and was more serious than the other two. Between the second and third volumes of the series ap- peared two novels : Elsie Venner (1861) and The Guardian Angel (1868). The weirdness of these romances recalls the manner of Hawthorne. The heroine of the first has in her blood the poison and the madness of a serpent. Her mother a short time before the birth of the girl was bitten by a rattlesnake, and the subtle poison enters into and influences the life of the child. Myrtle Hazard, the heroine of The Guardian Angel , is also an illustration of inherited traits. Her wayward, lawless freaks and instincts are inherited from distant an- cestors, one of whom had been suspected of witchcraft, and another of whom had been burned at the stake. Holmes’s other prose works are Soundings from the At- lantic (1864), being reprinted essays from the Atlantic Monthly; Mechanism in Thought and Morals (1871), being an essay on the functions of the brain ; memoirs of John Lothrop Motley (1879) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884), A Mortal Antipathy (1885), and Our Hundred Days in Europe (1887). His Poetry. — Holmes’s volumes of poetry are Urania (1846), Astrsea : The Balance of Illusions (1850), Songs in Many Keys (1861), Songs of Many Seasons (1875), and The Iron Gate (1880). He is the poet of society. No other American versifier can rhyme so easily and so gracefully. The majority of his productions have been called forth by special occasions. More than thirty were read at reunions of his old Harvard class. Twice as many more were read at Phi Beta Kappa anniversaries, centennials, social enter- tainments, and the like. These poems necessarily have only a temporary value. They are not a sure passport to posterity. They are neat and witty and original. They are always happy and full of melody. But their sparkling 114 AMERICAN LITERATURE. wit and spontaneity cannot ensure them a permanent place in the memories of readers. There is, however, another and much smaller group of poems which show in richest kind the best qualities of poetic art. They are “ The Chambered Nautilus,” “The Living Temple,” “ The Voiceless,” “ The Last Leaf,” “ The Deacon’s Masterpiece.” “ The Chambered Nautilus ” is a majestic treatment of a lofty theme. The Yankee spirit speaks in the “ Dea- con’s Masterpiece,” a poem of inimitable and faultless humor. “ The Last Leaf ” wonderfully combines pathos and fun, and is perhaps the finest example of his art. Holmes is, first of all, a humorist. But the distance be- tween the “ Ballad of an Oysterman ” or “ The Spectre Pig,” and “The Chambered Nautilus” or “The Living Temple,” denotes the variety of his genius. He can frolic in the broadest fun, touch the tenderest emotion, or draw deathless lessons from “the ship of pearl.” James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) is our foremost critic, essayist, and poet. His pojjularity has not been as great as Longfellow’s or Whittier’s, but his poetry has expressed deeper thoughts and broader culture than that of either of his predecessors. As an antislavery poet he was second only to Whittier, and many of his verses became watch- words of the party he supported. As a public man and representative of the United States Government in foreign courts he has upheld the noblest ideals of the republic and taught the manliest lessons of patriotism. He has ever preferred his country to his party, and has criticised with energy and indignation political evils and sordid selfish- ness which have threatened the dignity and honor of American citizenship. Early Years. — Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., February 22, 1819, in the historic “ Elmwood ” mansion. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1838. In 1840 LONGFELLOW \ HOLMES \ AND LOWELL. 115 he was admitted to the bar. He never practised his pro- fession, but gave himself entirely to literature. His first volume of poems was published in 1841, and was entitled A Year’s Life . In 1843 he established a magazine called The Pioneer , to which Hawthorne, Poe, and Whittier con- tributed, but which survived only three months. In 1844 he married Maria White, an abolitionist, who aroused in him an active opposition to slavery. Together they con- tributed to The Liberty Bell . In the same year he pub- lished another volume, containing a narrative poem, A legend of Brittany . His first venture in literary criticism was Conversations on the Old Poets (1845). In 1848 appeared three of Lowell’s most important poems : The Vision of Sir Launfal , The Biglow Papers , and A Fable for Critics . Professor and Editor. — In 1851 he visited Europe, but returned the following year. In 1855 he was appointed to succeed Longfellow as professor of modern languages and belles-lettres in Harvard. He again went abroad, and for two years studied widely in Italian, French, and Spanish before assuming the duties of his professorship. The Atlantic Monthly , the foremost literary magazine of America, was founded in 1857 by Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, and Lowell. Holmes proposed the name of the new magazine, and published in its earliest numbers “ The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” Lowell was chosen the first editor. From 1863 to 1872 he was joint-editor with Charles Eliot Norton of the North American Review . The capital essays which he contributed to these periodi- cals and to Putnam’s Monthly have been gathered into three volumes : Fireside Travels (1864), Among my Boohs (1870), and My Study Windows (1871). Public Offices. — President Hayes appointed Mr. Low- ell in 1877 minister to Spain. In 1880 he was transferred to Great Britain. Some of his public addresses while min- 116 AMERICAN LITERATURE. ister to England are among the choicest of his writings. Several of them are collected in Democracy and Other Essays (1887.). His Later Poems are the Commemoration Ode (1865) in honor of the “ living and dead soldiers of Harvard Uni- versity , Under the Willows and Other Poems (1869), The Cathedral (1869), and Three Memorial Poems (1876). Lowell’s home was at “ Elmwood,” but the author fre- quently crossed the ocean to the England that he loved so well. Lowell as Poet.— The first noticeable characteristic of Lowell’s poetry is its variety. He is a humorist, a writer of dialect verse, of songs of freedom, and of majestic me- morial odes. From the simple rustic charm of “ The Courtin’ ” he rises to the lofty thought of The Cathedral . Though he dwells upon the perplexing problems of the present age, he expresses no syllable of discontent or of despair. Like Emerson and Longfellow, he cherishes a generous optimism. It is this faith and joy in Nature and his own abundant health and hope that make such verses as “ Pictures from Appledore ” and “ Under the Willows ” so sympathetic and spontaneous. (1) Humor. — Lowell’s quick perception of the comic or quaint side of things, and his irrepressible humor, find their way into almost everything he does in prose and verse. They appear, combined with penetrating criticism, in the Fable for Critics , a good-natured satire on the poets of America. In it their virtues and foibles are neatly hit off. A capital contrast is drawn between Emerson and Carlyle ; and the criticisms ofPoe and Bryant and Hawthorne and Whittier are excellent. The poem was, however, carelessly written, the language is not well chosen, and many otherwise fine passages are marred by vulgarisms and atrocious rhymes. His humor is at its best and becomes classic in the Big- low Papers. This masterpiece is in two parts : the first was called out by the Mexican War; the second, by the LONGFELLOW \ HOLMES, AND LOWELL. 117 Civil War. The poems which composed the first part were pointed satires upon the Government and the war party. They pretended to be the writings of Hosea Biglow, an imaginary character, who cultivated the muse and a farm in a New England country-town. They were written in the Yankee dialect, and portray the Yankee character as no other works have done. The poems of Hosea were cor- rected and commented on by the deliciously humorous character, Homer Wilbur the learned pastor of the First Church in Jaalam (wherever on the map that may be). (2) Poems of Freedom. — Lowell’s serious political poems are the “ Present Crisis,” “ Ode to Freedom,” “ Capture of Fugitive Slaves,” “ Washing of the Shroud,” “ Villa Franca,” the “ Commemoration Ode,” etc. They cover a wide range of history, and they teach a manly courage and steadfast adhesion to the right. The “ Commemoration Ode ” is the best literary memorial of the Civil War. (3) Descriptions of Nature . — The best of Lowell s poems on Nature is “ The Vision of Sir Launfal.” It is based on the old tradition of the San Greal.* But it is chiefly famous, not for the story that it tells nor the moral that it draws, but for the superb lines upon June and December that it contains. Lowell’s Prose. — The essays collected in My Study Windows and Among my Books cover a wide range of litera- ture and show excellent judgment and acute criticism. They are full of information, and, still better, breathe the spirit of inspiration and enthusiasm. Their faults, which are insignificant in comparison with their superb qualities, are the faults of his poetry — an unpleasant mingling of the * The San Greal or Holy Grail, was the cup which held the wine at the first celebration of the Lord’s Supper. St. Joseph of Arimathea, it is said, received some of the blood of Christ in this cup at the crucifix- ion, and that it was carried away and hidden by angels. A search for it was instituted, and it was believed that no one could ever find it who was not perfectly pure in thought, word, and deed. 118 AMERICAN LITERATURE. serious and the grotesque, excessive use of rhetorical fig- ures, fondness for learned references and for odd or diffi- cult words. Edwin Percy Whipple (1819-86) is another critic of considerable local fame, and a lifelong friend of Emerson, Longfellow, and Lowell. He was a frequent lecturer on literary subjects and a contributor to the magazines. His first work was Essays and Reviews (1848). He next pub- lished Literature and Life (1849). His other works were Character and Characteristic Men (1866), Literature of the Age oj Elizabeth (1876), commonly considered his best work ; Recollections of Eminent Men (1887), and American Litera- ture and Other Papers (1887). Mr. Whipple had read largely, but, it would appear, with- out method. His criticism was rather superficial than penetrative. His skill in relating an anecdote was greater than his skill in interpreting an author. He was a close follower of Macaulay, but never caught the charm of his style. CHAPTER VI. The Historians. America has produced some of the best historical writings of the present century. To conceive and execute a great history requires the exercise of the highest literary powers. The author must possess imagination and narra- tive skill. He must interpret the past, and he must, like an artist, make the past to live again for us. The chief historians who have added lustre to Ameri- can literature in the nineteenth century are William Hickling Prescott, George Bancroft, John Lothrop Motley, and Francis Parkman. Other American his- torians of lesser merit are — Jared Sparks, John Gorham Palfrey, Richard Hildreth, John Foster Kirk, John Bach McMaster, and John Fiske. William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) was bom in Salem, Mass., May 4, 1796. He was a grandson of Colonel William Prescott, the hero of Bunker Hill. He was gradu- ated from Harvard College in 1814, and intended to study law, but was prevented by a serious accident. A crust of bread thrown across the table at a class dinner struck one of his eyes and destroyed the sight. The other eye be- came affected by sympathy, and for six weeks the cheer- ful patient was confined in a totally dark room. The heroism of the scholar is not less than the heroism of the soldier. Prescott dedicated his life to literature and his- tory, and, crippled as he was, produced works which the 119 120 AMERICAN LITERATURE. world will not willingly let die. He mastered the learned languages of Europe, and acquired by patient toil a clear and charming English style. The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella , his first book, ap- peared in 1837. It was the result of eleven years’ work. His plan was to listen for four hours each day to his reader; then to digest and arrange the material of the reading. By a marvellous exercise of memory he carried in his mind all the facts of his history, and composed to his satisfaction chapters of fifty and sixty pages, which were then dictated. The history covered three important events : the discov- ery of America, the conquest of the Moors, and the found- ing of the Inquisition. It met with great success, and the author was encouraged to continue his studies in Spanish history. Other Spanish Histories. — In 1843 he published the History of the Conquest of Mexico. It was written in a more animated and picturesque style than its predecessor, and dealt with the romantic and tragic incidents of the most absorbing period in the history of Spain. In 1847 ap- peared the History of the Conquest of Peru. It is the most artistic of his books, and tells in a fascinating way the story of the Incas and the Pizarros. Prescott died January 28, 1859, in the same year with Irving and with Lord Macaulay. He left unfinished a His- tory of Philip II Spanish subjects have proved particularly attractive to American scholars. We have seen that Irving’s best w T ork was done in that field. Indeed, Irving had begun a his- tory of the conquest of Mexico, but surrendered it to Pres- cott. Prescott’s biographer, Mr. George Ticknor (1791— 1871), published in 1849 the History of Spanish Literature , a masterly work which is still the standard authority upon the subject of which it treats. THE HISTORIANS. 121 Henry Charles Lea (1825 ) of Philadelphia has written a scholarly History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ayes (3 vols., New York, 1888). Georg© Bancroft (1800-1891) was born in Worcester, Mass., October 3, 1800. After graduating, in 1817, he went to Germany, and for five years pursued a wide range of studies in the principal universities. His first publication was a volume of poems in 1823. He was for a few years connected with the Round Hill Classical School at Northampton, Mass. The first volume of his life-work, The History of the United States, appeared in 1834. He has held several public positions. He was ap- pointed in 1838 collector of the port of Boston. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1844, and was Sec- retary of the Navy under President Polk. It was through his influence that the Naval Academy at Annapolis was established. He was minister to England from 1846 to 1849. He has also represented the United States Govern- ment in Russia and in Germany. Bancroft is a philosophical historian. He has produced an exhaustive and authoritative history of the United States down to the formation of the Constitution. The work is clear, but tedious. It is learned and diffuse. Its twelve volumes are almost too much for time and patience, but it is none the less a monument to the scholarship and unflagging industry of the writer. The last volume was published in 1882, and the revised edition was issued in 1884, fifty years after the appearance of the first volume. Mr. Bancroft now lives in Washington in the winter and at Newport in the summer. John Lothrop Motley (1814-77), the greatest of Ameri- can historians, was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 15, 1814. He was educated in Mr. Bancroft’s Round Hill 122 AMERICAN LITERATURE . School, and from there was sent to Harvard. He com- pleted his university studies in Germany. In 1839 he published an unsuccessful novel called Morton’s Hope. Ten years later appeared a second novel, Merry Mount. It was based upon the romantic incident in the history of the Massachusetts Colony, of which Thomas Morton of Mount Wollaston was the hero. (See page 17.) Motley’s first historical essay was upon the life and character of Peter the Great, and was published in the North American Review (1845). Histories of Holland. — Historians who would produce exhaustive and permanently valuable works concentrate their studies upon a single nation or a particular age. Irving and Prescott chose Spain ; Motley in 1846 began to master the history of Holland. After ten years of patient toil he published at his own expense The Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic (1856). Its success was immediate, and the obscure author was at once universally recognized as a great historian. No historical work combining so many elements of greatness had yet been produced in America. His second brilliant work was The History of the United Netherlands (1860-68). From 1861 to 1867 he was minister to Austria. He was appointed minister to England, but was recalled in 1870. His third and last work, The Life and Death of John of Barneveld appeared in 1874. It was perhaps even more classic in style than either of its superb predecessors. Motley died in Dorchester, England, May 29, 1877. Dean Stanley, in a sermon preached in Westminster Ab- bey, referred to him as “ one of the brightest lights of the Western Hemisphere, . . . the indefatigable historian who told, as none before him had told, the history of the rise and struggle of the Dutch Republic. So long as the tale of the greatness of the house of Orange, of the siege of Leyden, of the tragedy of Barneveld interests mankind, so long will Holland be indissolubly connected with the name THE HISTORIANS. 123 of Motley in the union of the ancient culture of Europe with the aspirations of America.” Motley’s learning was more profound than Prescott’s, his grasp of historical research surer and more compre- hensive, and in pictorial power he has surpassed all our historians save Parkman. His life has been written by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Francis Parkman (1823 ) has surpassed all other writers of history in brilliant narrative and in a pure, direct, and vigorous style. He too has made a single epoch the subject of lifelong study, and has mastered every detail of it. He was born in Boston September 16, 1823, and was graduated at Harvard in 1844. He is still living in Bos- ton, and in the summer at Jamaica Plains. In 1871 he was professor of horticulture in the agricultural school of Harvard. Like Bancroft, he is fond of flowers, and, like him also, is very successful in the cultivation of roses. The Lilium Parhnanni has been named for him. Before he was graduated from Harvard, Parkman had conceived the idea of writing on “ French-American his- tory.” For almost fifty years he has faithfully pursued his studies in the story of the French occupation of this conti- nent, and the work is still incomplete, though one more volume will finish the magnificent series. Preparing* for His Histories. — The story he had to tell was one of conquest and adventure. The savage allies of France in the French and Indian Wars necessarily oc- cupied an important place in it. In order to understand thoroughly the way of life, the character, and habits of the wild natives of America, he started from St. Louis in 1846 with a hunter guide for the Far West. For several weeks he lived with a tribe of the Sioux Indians, sharing in every particular their brutal life — choked with smoke in their filthy wigwams, feeding with them on bear’s grease, fol- lowing them in their buffalo hunts among the Black Hills, 124 AMERICAN LITERATURE. observing minutely all their ceremonies. The narrative of his hardships and adventures is contained in his first book, The Oregon Trail (1849). Parkman never entirely recovered from the severe phys- ical strain of those sickening months. His health has never been strong, and, like Prescott, he has suffered con- tinually from partial blindness. He has visited and ex- amined every spot where events of any importance in his history took place. After his sojourn among the Indians he visited Europe, studied in foreign archives, and de- ciphered French manuscripts, so that his subject has been studied both from life and from books. In 1851 appeared his second book, The Conspiracy of Pontiac. He also wrote a novel, Vassal Morton , in 1854. French-American History. — The general title of Parkman’s series of histories is “ France and England in North America : a Series of Historical Narratives.” It is the struggle of the two European powers for the pos- session of the American continent — a struggle fraught with stupendous consequences for this country. (See page 25.) The successive volumes of the group are : 1. Pioneers of France in the New World (1865), in two parts — (a) “ Hugue- nots in Florida (5) “ Samuel de Champlain 2. The Jesuits in North America (1867) ; 3. La Salle; or , The Dis- covery of the Great West (1869) ; 4. The Old Regime in Can- ada (1874) ; 5. Count Frontenac ; or, New France under Louis XIV. (1877) ; 6. (unpublished) ; 7. Montcalm and Wolfe (1884). The time covered by these volumes is from the discovery of Florida, in 1512, to the taking of Quebec, in 1759. The scenes of the events are the shores of the St. Law- rence, Quebec, Montreal, Lake Champlain and Ticonde- roga, the chain of the great lakes, and the Mississippi River to the Far South-west. The characters of the books are French noblemen, THE HISTORIANS. 125 Jesuit fathers, Indian braves, explorers, trappers, and half-breeds. The style is remarkable for vividness. It is hardly credi- ble that these histories should ever be supplanted or re- written. Jared Sparks (1789-1866) edited the writings of George Washington in 1834. He was the first editor of the Amer- ican Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge. He was professor of history in Harvard from 1839 to 1849, and president of the college until 1853. He edited in 1830 The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution. He also wrote The Life of Gouverneur Morris (1832). Mr. Sparks was the editor of The Library of American Biography and edited the Works of Benjamin Franklin. American history is indebted to him for his thorough and careful editing of important works. John Gorham Palfrey (1796-1881) was a graduate of Harvard, and succeeded Edward Ever'ett as pastor of the Brattle Street Unitarian Church in Boston. He held many important public offices, and was an early antislavery advocate. His important work was The History of New England to 1875 (4 vols., 1858-64). His style is clear, but not vivid. His manner is not sprightly nor rhetorical, but is careful and conscientious. Richard Hildreth (1807-65) was born in Deerfield, Mass., June 22, 1807, and was graduated at Harvard in 1826. He practised law in Newburyport and Boston until 1832, when he became editor of the Boston Atlas. His earliest work was Archy Moore (1836), the first anti- slavery novel. In 1855 he published Japan as it Was and Is. His most important work, the History of the United States , in six volumes, was published from 1849 to 1856. For the ordinary reader this is much the best history of 126 AMERICAN LITERATURE. the country. It has not so much rhetoric as Bancroft’s, but its literary merit is higher. The style is clear and the arrangement orderly. Bancroft and Hildreth represent different political ideas. The former adheres in his history to the Democratic party, and exalts the importance of Jef- ferson in the evolution of our Government. The latter makes Hamilton his central and most imposing figure. Mr. Hildreth died at Florence, Italy, July 11, 1865. John Foster Kirk (1824 ) was secretary to Wil- liam H. Prescott, and assisted in preparing all the his- torian’s later works. He has published the History of Charles the Bold (1863-68), an admirable work which was warmly praised by E. A. Freeman. He is now lecturer on European history at the University of Pennsylvania. John Fiske (1842 ) is the most eloquent of histor- ical lecturers. He first became known as a student of phil- osophy and an interpreter of the scientific doctrine of evo- lution. He was recognized as the ablest representative in America of the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. When he turned his attention to history it was to apply the evolutionary principle to the explanation of historic facts. He has published Myths and Myth-Makers (1872), Out- lines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874), Darwinism and Other Es- says (1879), Excursions of an Evolutionist (1883), The Destiny of Man (1884), American Political Ideas (1885), and The Critical Period in American History (1888). He is about to publish a comprehensive History of the American People . John Bach McMaster (1852 ) is publishing an ex- cellent and very minute History of the People of the United States. It was begun in 1870. Two volumes have already appeared. Mr. McMaster, who is professor of American history in the University of Pennsylvania, has also written a good Life of Benjamin Franklin in the American Men-of- Letters series. CHAPTER VII. Edgar Allan Poe and Other Southern Poets. Edgar Allan Poe, after Nathaniel Hawthorne, is the greatest literary genius of America. His life and his writ- ings belong to an altogether different world from that in which Emerson, Longfellow, and Lowell moved. His life was a tragedy. It was not lived in conformity with the moral law. It was a constant struggle with poverty, full of the acutest suffering, and embittered by his sensitive pride. He was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. He was but two years old when his parents, both of whom were actors, died, within a week of each other, at Richmond, Va. The child was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy tobacco- merchant in Richmond. Poe was brought up in luxury and carefully educated. He was taken to England and put to school at Stoke-Newington, near London. On his return to America he entered the University of Virginia (1826), where he learned to gamble, but altogether neglected his studies. At the end of his first year he had con- tracted so many debts that he was removed from college. He quarrelled with Mr. Allan, who would no longer coun- tenance his bad habits and reckless extravagance. Leav- ing Richmond, he made his way to Boston, and there, in 1827, he published his first work, Tamerlane and Other Poems. 127 128 AMERICAN LITERATURE. In the following year he enlisted in the United States army under the name of Edgar A. Perry, and served for more than a year as private and as sergeant-major. On the death of Mrs. Allan he returned on a furlough to Richmond, was reconciled to his foster-father, and through his influence was admitted to West Point. He was at first successful, but he soon wearied of the discipline, neglected his studies, drifted into his former intemperate habits, and was expelled. He then went to Baltimore, where he wrote a prize-story — “ A Manuscript Found in a Bottle ” — which proved his first success. On the recommendation of John P. Kennedy he was appointed editor of the Southern Literary Messenger at Rich- mond. He then began to write the .sombre and mys- terious tales upon which his future fame was largely to rest. He was married in 1836, and in the next year re- signed his post and went to New York. In that city and in Philadelphia he engaged in journalism. He edited Burton's Magazine in New York, Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia, and was connected with the Evening Mirror and Broadway Journal in New York. In every case he lost his position through intemperance or through quarrelling with the publisher. He lived at this time a wayward Bo- hemian life, doing all manner of literary hack-work, and recklessly staggering from bad to worse. He published in these years Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), Tales of the Arabesque and Grotesque (1839), The Gold Bug (1840), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841). On the 28th of January, 1845, in the Evening Mirror ap- peared his poem of “ The Raven.” In Godey's Lady's Book he published “ The Literati of New York,” a series of criticisms, partly just and partly brutal, upon American writers. They awoke bitter ani- mosities which are not yet forgotten. “ Eureka, a prose-poem,” of which Poe thought highly, was published in 1848. EDGAR ALLAN POE , ETC. 129 His wife had died in 1847, and soon after lie formed an engagement with a widow in Richmond. He started for New York (September 30, 1849) to arrange for the wed- ding, but met some of his old military companions, and on the 3d of October was found unconscious in a tavern in Baltimore. He was taken to a hospital, where he died of delirium tremens. His Poetry. — Poe’s popularity as a poet began with “ The Raven ” (1845). The volume in which it was pub- lished contained also several lyrics ; among them were “ Val- ley of Unrest,” “ The Sleeper,” “ Israfel,” “ City in the Sea,” “ To One in Paradise,” “ Eulalie,” and “ The Conqueror Worm.” When to these few poems we add “ Ulalume,” “The Bells,” “Annabel Lee,” “ The Haunted Palace,” and “ To Helen,” we have named almost everything of value in Poe’s poetic work. “ The Raven ” is, to the general reader, the one poem that Poe wrote. It is not his best, but it is entitled to an unique place in literature. It is the poem of despair. The bird has caught its pitiless cry of “ nevermore ” from some unhappy master whom unfortunate disaster fol- lowed fast and followed faster, until his songs one burden bore, till the dirges of his hope the melancholy burden bore, of “ Never, nevermore.” The poem is grotesque, pathetic, tragic. Its melody is forced and artificial. It is needless to discuss the merits and the style of the individual poems. They illustrate one subject and one manner. In defining poetry, Poe wrote, “ Music is the perfection of the soul or the idea of poetry ; the vagueness of exalta- tion aroused by a sweet air (which should be indefinite and never too strongly suggestive) is precisely what we should aim at in poetry.” And again he defined poetry as “ the rhythmic creation of the beautiful.” Every line of his own poetry is in accord with this definition. He created vague images of beauty. He produced gloomy y 130 AMERICAN LITERATURE. and terrible poems which appeal to the imagination, not to the intellect nor the heart. It is useless to seek in them for philosophic ideas or for moral lessons. The reader abandons himself to a current of melodious fancy. In mastery of the resources of poetic harmony Poe has had no equal in America. Like Coleridge and Shelley, he was keenly sensitive to sound ; he heard in his dreams the tinkling footfalls of seraphim, and subordinated every- thing in his verse to the delicious effects of musical sound. His Pros© Tales. — Poetry, Poe said, was not a pursuit with him, but a passion. His best strength and fullest imagination were reserved for his prose tales, and those tales have obtained unbounded popularity. Like his poems, they are all contained within a narrow sphere and exhibit the same peculiarities. Their names suggest their gloomy and sometimes fearful subjects : “ The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “ The Mystery of Marie Roget,” and “ The Purloined Letter,” which were predecessors of the modern detective story ; “ The Gold Bug ” and “ Hans Pfaal,” extravagant tales of the Jules Verne type; “The Black Cat,” “ The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “ The Cask of Amontillado,” sombre stories of terror and of pas- sion. A comparison is naturally suggested between Haw- thorne and Poe. The latter never produced a long and complete work like two or three of Hawthorne’s, but the subjects which attracted the two writers had something in common. Both chose weird and dreary subjects and inci- dents of morbid psychology. But Hawthorne was dis- tinctly moral in all his writing. Poe had no moral feeling whatever. Leslie Stephen, the English critic, has de- scribed Poe as “ Hawthorne and delirium tremens.” Hawthorne paid particular attention to his story. Poe regarded most the effect which the story would produce. In artistic construction he was not far behind Hawthorne. EDGAR ALLAN POE , ETC. 131 He excelled in vivid descriptions, in orderly arrangement of the parts of his plots, and in steady, undeviating progress toward the climax and conclusion of a story. His lan- guage, too, deserves notice because of his skill in the man- agement of sentences and because of his rare gift in the choice of words. Other Southern Poets. — Francis Scott Key (1779- 1843) was a native of Maryland. He is famous for a sin- gle poem, “ The Star-Spangled Banner.” Richard Henry Wilde was born in Dublin Sept. 24, 1789, and died in New Orleans, La., Sept. 10, 1847. He was also the author of a single popular poem, “ My Life is Like the Summer Rose.” Edward Coate Pinkney was born in London Oct. 1, 1802, and died in Baltimore April 11, 1828. His popular poem was “ The Health,” beginning — “ I fill this cup to one made up Of loveliness alone.” George Henry Calvert was born in Prince George County, Maryland, Jan. 2, 1803, and died in Newport, R. I., in 1889. He made several translations from the German and published a few original dramas. Albert Pike (1809 ) was born in Boston Dec. 29, 1809, but has made his home in the South. His best work is entitled Hymns to the Gods (1839). His often- quoted poem, “ To a Mocking-Bird,” is a close copy of Keats’s “ Ode to a Nightingale.” Pendleton Cooke (1816-50), a Virginian by birth and residence, wrote Froissart Ballads and Other Poems. He is remembered, however, for his pretty lyric, “ Florence Vane.” His brother, John Esten Cooke (1830-86), wrote a number of stories and books relating to Virginia. Paul Hamilton Hayne, a nephew of the statesman Robert Y Hayne, was born in Charleston, S. C., January 132 AMERICAN LITERATURE . 1, 1830, and died near Augusta, Georgia, July 6, 1886. He was reduced to poverty by the Civil War. He did more than any other Southern writer to awaken an interest in the higher forms of literature. He has been called “ The Laureate of the South.” He published Sonnets and Other Poems (1855), Avolio : A Legend of the Island of Cos (1869), Legends and Lyrics (1872), The Mountain of the Lovers and Other Poemis (1873). Henry Timrod (1829-67) was another fine poetic genius impoverished by the Civil War. Like Hayne and W. G. Simms, he was a native of Charleston, S. C. He wrote many stirring lyrics during the war. The gentleness of his spirit and purity of his thought found expression in a style which, though not strong, was singularly melodious. Sidney Lanier, the writer of widest scholarship and broadest mind among the poets of the South, was born in Macon, Georgia, February 3, 1842, and died at Lynn, N. C., September 7, 1881. His experiences as a Confederate soldier he put into a novel called Tiger Lilies (1867). In 1879 he was appointed lecturer on English literature in the John Hopkins University. His prose works are The Boys ’ Froissart (1878), The Boys ’ King Arthur (1880), Science of English Verse (1880), The Boys ’ Mabinogion (1881), The Boys ’ Percy (1882), The English Novel (1883). His most elaborate poem was entitled “ Sunrise.” Lanier’s poems are disfigured by one of the most com- mon defects of our contemporary poetry — a constant striv- ing and straining after novelty of expression. His style is never restful ; it is always aiming at sensational effect. Every line is loaded with extravagant imagery, and the old familiar phrases of our language assume under his im- patient* hands new and odd forms. To that simplicity which is the highest beauty Lanier never attained. CHAPTER VIII. The Novelists. From Cooper to the Civil War. Brown and Cooper were our first novelists ; Hawthorne and Poe were our last romancers. During the past forty years the novel has steadily advanced. It has aimed at the interpretation of different phases of American life. It has found its subjects in all parts of the country. It has helped forward great causes. One , novel in particular, Uncle Tom’s Cabin , exerted a mighty influence in the anti- slavery movement. The development of the novel has been most rapid since the Civil War, and the best Ameri- can writers of the present day find their most congenial task in the field of fiction. Catherine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867) is the nearest of our novelists to Cooper in point of time. Her first book, A New England Tale , was published anonymously in 1822. It was followed by Redwood (1824). Both were very pop- ular, and were translated into several European languages. Hope Leslie; or, Early Times in Massachusetts (1827), Clar- ence: A Tale of Our Own Times (1830), The Linwoods ; or y Sixty Years Since in America (1835), were among the best of her other books. They are all tedious reading. A few have some value from their graphic pictures of character and manners in Massachusetts ; but most of them are marred by petty sermons upon insignificant matters. Lydia Maria Child (1802-80) was a writer of much ■ 133 134 AMERICAN LITERATURE. greater force than Miss Sedgwick. Her first novel, Hobo - mole , was published in 1821. It was a story of the early settlement of the country. In the next year appeared The Rebels : A Tale of the Revolution . Philothea , a romance of Athens in the age of Pericles, was published in 1835. Mrs. Child was a steadfast advocate of the anti-slavery cause, and wrote much in defence of her principles. She also wrote many excellent works for the young. John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870) was the first of the Southern novelists. He had a long and honorable political career. He wrote Swallow Barn (1832), Horse-shoe Robinson (1835), and Rob of the Bowl (1838). The first, which was his best work, was a story of rural life in Vir- ginia ; the second described South Carolina in Revolution- ary times ; the last related scenes and incidents in Mary- land under the second Lord Baltimore. It is interesting to remember that Kennedy wrote the fourth chapter of the second volume of Thackeray’s Virginians , which accounts for the accuracy of its descriptions of local scenery. William Gilmore Simms was the most prolific of the Southern writers. He was born in Charleston, S. C., April 17, 1806. He essayed every kind of literature, but was most successful in fiction. Many of his novels are histori- cal, and nearly all have Southern scenes. He followed Cooper in the “ novel of adventure.” His stories are full of lively incident, but they are rude in style, hastily writ- ten, and plainly show the striving of the author after startling effects. His best novel is The Yemassee (1835). Out of the host of his works may be selected for especial mention, The Partisan (1835), Richard Hurdis (1838), Carl Werner (1838), Border Beagles (1840), Beauchampe (1842), Castle Dismal (1845), The Wigwam and the Cabin (1845), The Scout (1854), The Forayers (1855), and The Maroon (1855). Among his more serious works are the History of South Carolina (1840), Life of Francis Marion (1844), Life of Na- THE NOVELISTS. 135 thanael Greene (1849), and South Carolina in the Revolution (1854). Robert Montgomery Bird (1803-54) carried on Coop- er’s “ novel of adventure,” but without a tithe of Cooper’s ability. He began his literary career with writing trage- dies, one of which, The Gladiator , became a favorite with Edwin Forrest. His first two novels, Calavar (1834) and The Infidel (1835), described Mexico during the Spanish conquest. His other fictions were extravagant accounts of wild life in Kentucky, in which Indians, bowie-knives, and tomahawks abounded. Their titles are significant of their contents : The Hawks of Hawk Hollow , Sheppard Lee , Nick of the Woods, Peter Pilgrim , and Robin Day. They were the predecessors of the dime novel. William Starbuck Mayo (1812 ) is the author of Kaloolah , a novel of Munchausen-like adventures in Africa, and purporting to be the autobiography of one Jonathan Romer. Certain foolish critics have asserted that this novel suggested to Mr. Ridef Haggard some of the scenes of his African romances. Herman Melville (1819-1891) was born in New York August 1, 1819. He lived a life of adventure, and chron- icled his romantic experiences, in his books. In 1841 he embarked in a whaling-vessel bound for the South Pacific. With one companion he deserted while the ship lay in the harbor of Nukahiva, one of the Marquesas Islands. Among the mountains of the island they fell in with a race of cannibals (the Typees), by whom they were kept in captivity, though kindly treated, for four months. Melville finally escaped on an Australian whaler. In 1846 he published Typee , in which he related the incidents of his four months’ life among the canni- bals. In the following year he continued the narrative in a second book, entitled Omoo. His other works are Mardi , and a Voyage Thither (1848), White Jacket ; or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850), Moby Dick; or, The Whale 136 AMERICAN LITERATE RE. (1851), Pierre; or , The Ambiguities (1852), The Piazza Tales (1856), and The Confidence-Man (1857). Sylvester Judd (1813-53) was a graduate of Yale and a Unitarian clergyman. He wrote several books, but only one of note. The work which will always be associated with his name is Margaret : A Tale of the Real and the Ideal (1845). Lowell called it “ the first Yankee book with the soul of Down East in it.” The book has been much over- praised. It is not very interesting reading ; it is crude in its style, and the progress of the story is often interrupted that a tedious sermon may be inserted. There is, how- ever, a very decided value attaching to those parts of the book which depict in a faithful and masterly way the manner of life in an outlying New England town directly after the close of the Revolution. After the Civil War. Josiah Gilbert Holland was born in Belchertown, Mass., July 24, 1819. He was educated at the Northamp- ton High School. He studied medicine, and began the practice of his profession at Springfield. His literary am- bition led him to undertake the publication of a literary paper, which, however, lived but six months. He taught school in Richmond, Va., and was superintendent of pub- lic schools in Vicksburg, Miss. On his return to Massa- chusetts he became one of the editors of the Springfield Republican. His first work was the History of Western Massachusetts (1855). Then followed The Bay-Path (1857), Timothy Tit- combos Letters to Young People (1858), B itter Sweet (1858), Gold-Foil Hammered from Popular Proverbs (1859), Miss Gilbert's Career , a novel (1860), Lessons in Life (1861), Let- ters to the Joneses (1863), Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects (1865), Life of Abraham Lincoln (1865), Kathrina , a poem (1866), Arthur Bonnicastle , a novel (1873), The Mistress of the Manse , a poem (1874). THE NOVELISTS . 137 The Bay-Path was an historical novel of the early settle- ment of the Connecticut Valley ; it was not at first success- ful, but the books which immediately followed it became very popular. I 11 1870, Mr. Holland became editor of Scribner's Monthly. In it appeared his last books, “ Sevenoaks ” (1875) and “Nicholas Minturn ” (1876). He died in New York October 21, 1881. Edward Everett Hale, a Unitarian clergyman, has written a large number of excellent stories. He was born in Boston, Mass., April 3, 1822, and was graduated at Har- vard in 1839. He has lived a busy life, engaging actively in many philanthropic movements. He has had a large experience in journalism, and has been much sought after as a lecturer. His sermons, too, abound in fine literary criticism and suggestions for public welfare. His literary fame rests upon his short stories. They aim to teach some leading idea, and are often lit up with sparkling humor. The laughable stdrv, “ My Double, and How he Undid me ” (1859), first attracted public attention. His most powerful story, “ The Man Without a Country,” was published anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly in 1863. It has become a “ classic,” and deserves its fame by reason of the truthfulness of its style and the impres- sive lesson it conveys. No better sermon upon patriotism has ever been preached. Among his other works are Margaret Percival in Amer- ica (1850), If YeSj and Perhaps (1868), The Ingham Papers (1869), Ten Times One is Ten (1870), In His Name (1874), Philip Nolan's Friends (1876), Gone to Texas (1877), Seven Spanish Cities (1883), and Franklin in France (1887). John Townsend Trowbridge has written several novels of adventure, some capital stories for boys, and a few meri- torious poems. He was born in Ogden, New York, September 18, 1827. His early life was a struggle with poverty. His literary 138 AMERICAN LITERATURE. life began in New York, where he has been connected with several magazines and newspapers. Among his books are Father Brighthopes (1853), Burr- cliff (1853), Martin Merrivale , His x Mark (1854), Iron- thorpe (1855), Neighbor Jackwood (1857), The Old Battle- Ground (1859), Cudjo's Cave , a story of the adventures of a runaway slave (1864), Coupon Bonds , a humorous story of rural life in New England (1871). In 1866, Mr. Trowbridge published The South , a large book giving descriptions of the Southern cities and battle- fields of the Civil War. His best-known jDoem is “ The Vagabonds,” originally published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1863. Female Writers of Fiction. — Among the female novel- ists who have done their best work since the Civil War are Adeline D. T. Whitney, Rose Terry Cooke, Rebecca Harding Davis, Louise Chandler Moulton, Harriet Elizabeth Spofford, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Con- stance Fenimore Woolson, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Mary Noailles Murfree. Adeline D. T. Whitney (1824 ) has written many stories for young people. Among the best of them are Boys at Chequasset (1862), Faith Gartney's Girlhood (1868), The Gayworthys (1865), A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life (1866), We Girls (1870), Real Folks (1871). She has also written a few volumes of poems — Pansies (1872) and Bird Talk (1887). Rose Terry Cooke (1827 ) has written many short stories and magazine sketches, mainly upon New England village-life. Miss Lucinda , Ann Potter's Lesson , Turkey Tracks , The Deacon's Week , etc. are delightfully humorous and genuinely truthful. Her poems show greater melody than Mrs. Whitney’s. “ The Two Villages ” (one of the living, the other of the dead) is the best known of her poems. Rebecca Harding Davis (1831 ) has found her sub- THE NOVELISTS. 139 jects among the lower classes of society. Her first im- portant story was Life in the Iron Mills (1861). She has since published Margaret Howth (1861), Waiting for the Verdict (1867), Dallas Galbraith (1868), A Laiv Unto Her- self (1878). Louise Chandler Moulton (1835 ) has contributed to the New York Tribune and other papers. She has writ- ten in both prose and poetry, but has been most successful with her children’s stories. Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (1835- ) has written more vivid and more original stories than any female writer of our time. Her reputation was made by an admirable story called “ In a Cellar,” published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1859. Mrs. Spofford’s stories show wide reading and a remarkable mastery of language and intense feeling. The descriptions of nature are luxuriant and profuse. Among her books are Sir Rohan's Ghost (1859), The Thief in the Night (1872), Marquis of Carabas (1882), Hester Stanley at St. Marks (18$3). Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844 ) is the author of The Gates Ajar (1868), The Silent Partner (1870), An Old Maid's Paradise (1879), Seeded Orders (1879), and Jack the Fisherman (1887). Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in Manchester, England, in 1849. Her parents came to America in 1865 and settled in Tennessee. Her first novel, That Lass o’ Loivrie's , is still her best. It is a story of the Lancashire mines, and written in the dia- lect with which the author had been familiar as a child. It was issued in Scribner's Magazine and published in book form in 1877. Her other novels are Haworth's (1879), Louisiana (1880), A Fair Barbarian (1880), Through One Administration (1883), and the very popular Little Lord, Fauntleroy (1886). Sarah Orne Jewett (1849 ) is the author of Deephaven (1877), Old Friends and New (1879), Country By- 140 AMERICAN LITERATURE. ways (1881), A Country Doctor (1884), A Marsh Island (1885). Mary Noailles Murfree, who writes under the name of “ Charles Egbert Craddock,” was born near Murfrees- borough, Tenn., in 1850. Her stories are of the Tennessee mountains, full of local color and in the local dialect. They are — In the Tennessee Mountains (1884), Where the Bat- tie was Fought (1884), Down the Ravine (1885), The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains (1885), In the Clouds (1886). Howells and James. — The two men who best repre- sent the American novel at the present time are William Dean Howells and Henry James, Jr. Both have a def- inite theory of the function of the novel, and both are mas- ters of style. The theory which they entertain of their art has won for them the name of “ realists.” They be- lieve that it is not the province of the novel to tell a story, that the stories have all been told, and that the novelist must aim to produce minute studies of certain aspects of life and types of character. The books they have produced are rather photographic than artistic. They shun impos- ing characters and thrilling incidents, and make much of uninteresting people and the ordinary events of our social life. In reading either novelist, but particularly Mr. How- ells, we feel that we are in the hands of an expert stylist ; though we sometimes weary of the monotonously clever manner, and wish for larger subjects and more sympa- thetic treatment. William Dean Howells was born in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, March 1, 1837. He learned to set type in his father’s newspaper office before he was twelve years old. After a varied experience as compositor and journalist he pub- lished, with John J. Piatt, in 1860, Poems of Two Friends . He was appointed consul to Venice by President Lincoln. During his four years’ residence in that city he mastered the Italian language and literature, developed his own exquisite style, and made the observations which took THE NOVELISTS. 141 shape in Venetian Life (1866) and Italian Journeys (1867). From 1872 to 1881 he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly , and since 1886 he has conducted the “ Editor’s Study ” in Harper’s Magazine. His first attempt at story-telling was Their Wedding Journey (1871). It was a transcript of real life, the de- scription of a bridal trip across New York State. A more complete novel was A Chance Acquaintance (1873), which is a description of a holiday trip upon the St. Lawrence to Quebec and the Saguenay. A Foregone Conclusion was published in 1874, A Counter- feit Presentment in 1877, The Lady of the Aroostook in 1878. The Undiscovered Country (1880) was a study in Spirit- ualism in New England. His best novel, A Modern Instance , appeared in 1883. His other books are — A Fearful Responsibility (1882), Dr. Breen’s Practice (1883), A Woman’s Reason (1884), The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), Tuscan Cities (1885), The Min- ister’s Charge (1886), Indian Summer (1886). He has also written a number of admirable little com- edies, “ trifles light as air.” Such are — The Parlor Car , The Sleeping Chr, The Elevator , and The Register. Henry James, Jr., was born in New York City April 15, 1843. He came of a literary family, and was carefully educated in foreign cities. His father was a distinguished theologian, and his elder brother is now professor of phil- osophy in Harvard College. Mr. James is the originator of the international novel. He has lived so much abroad that he is as much European as American. His style and his subjects have alike been in- fluenced by his wide study of French literature. Most of his works exhibit the contrast between American and Eu- ropean life. When the scene is laid in Europe the chief characters are American travellers coming for the first time in contact with the society of the Old World. Such books are Daisy Miller , Pension Beaurepas , and A Bundle of Letters . 142 A MERIC A N LITER A TURE. When the scene is laid in America the points of difference between European and American manners are indicated by introducing among the characters foreigners and trav- elled Americans. Instances are, The Europeans and an International Episode. The first of his long novels was Roderick Hudson (1875). A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Stories (1875) was a collec- tion of his stories in the magazines. It contained, among others, “ The Last of the Valerii ” and the “ Madonna of the Future.” The American appeared in 1878, and in the same year also Daisy Miller was published. In 1878, Mr. James published The Europeans and an excellent volume of criticism entitled French Poets and Novelists. His other works are — Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Portraits of Places (1884), Tales of Three Cities (1884), Princess Casamassima (1886), and The Bostonians , like The Undiscovered Country , a study in New England Spiritualism (1886). Other Novelists. — Edward Eggleston (1837 ) has written a few novels describing life in Southern Indiana. The first and best was The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1871). The others were the End of the World (1872), Mystery of Metropolisville (1873), The Circuit-Rider (1874), and The Hoosier School-hoy (1883). George W. Cable (1844 ) has found his subjects in Louisiana. He has tried to picture the social life along the Gulf, and particularly to depict the manners and traditions of the Creoles. His books are — Old Creole Days (1879), The Grandissimes (1880), Madame Delphine (1881), Dr. Sevier (1883), The Creoles of Louisiana (1884), and The Silent South (1885). Mr. Cable has succeeded in producing readable and artistic works, but they are not to be taken as accurate representations of Creole life. Francis Marion Crawford (1845 ), a son of Thomas Crawford, the sculptor, is the author of Mr. Isaacs (1882), Doctor Claudius (1883), A Roman Singer (1884), To THE NOVELISTS. 143 Leeward (1884), An American Politician (1885), Zoroaster (1885), Tale of a Lonely Parish (1886), and Saracinesca (1886). His works are peculiarly interesting to the student of Italy. They are infused with Italian life and spirit, and their very language is curiously affected by the author’s intimate knowledge of Italian. CHAPTER IX. After the Civil War. The Poets. The Civil War of 1861 produced but little literature of note. A number of battle-pieces and a few occasional poems exhaust its contributions to our literature. The years from 1830 to 1860 had been most fruitful in good books in both prose and poetry. Since the war the num- ber of writers and of readers has greatly increased, but the works produced have been of a sensibly inferior quality. Many meritorious histories have been written of the na- tional struggle, among which those by Greeley, Stephens, and Draper are especially deserving of mention. Wilson’s Rise and Fall of the Slave Poiver in America is an indispen- sable aid to the student of the events that culminated in the Civil War. Interesting historic memorials have also been produced by Generals Sherman, Grant, and Sheridan. 1. Poetry of the War. — As the Revolutionary War gave rise to numerous patriotic ballads, so the Civil War produced several patriotic lyrics. Among the most famous of the latter are Whittier’s “ Barbara Frietchie T. Bu- chanan Read’s “ Sheridan’s Ride;” Francis M. Finch’s “The Blue and the Gray,” a Decoration Day poem; Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle-Hymn of the Republic;” James R. Randall’s “ Maryland, my Maryland,” which 144 THE POETS. 145 has been called “ the Marseillaise of the Confederate cause ;” Ethel Lynn Beers’s “ All Quiet along the Poto- mac;” George Frederick Root’s “ Battle-Cry of Freedom;” and Albert Pike’s “ Dixie.” Lowell’s “ Commemoration Ode ” is the best literary memorial of the war, but the poets who distinctly belong to the struggle, and derive whatever fame they have from it, are Henry Howard Brownell and Forceythe Willson. Henry Howard Brownell (1820-72) was appointed acting ensign on the flag-ship “ Hartford ” by Admiral Farragut. He was in the battle of Mobile Bay and in the “ passage of the forts ” below New Orleans. The former he commemorated in the “ Bay Fight;” the latter, in the “ River Fight.” They are his best poems. He has been called by Dr. Holmes “ Our Battle Laureate.” He pub- lished Lyrics of a Day (1864) and War Lyrics (1866). Forceythe Willson (1837-67) was the author of the very familiar poem “ The Old Sergeant.” He wrote also a poem on the fight at Fort Henry, entitled the “ Rhyme of the Master’s Mate.” 2. Female Poets. — Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the magnificent “ Battle-Hymn of the Republic,” was born in New York City, May 27, 1819, and in 1843 married Dr. Samuel G. Howe, the philanthropist and educator of Laura Bridgman. During the war the rude but thrilling threnody of “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave” was heard in every Northern camp, and to its stirring melody the regiments kept time as they marched. Mrs. Howe in her majestic “ Battle-Hymn ” furnished the cho- rus with noble words. Mrs. Howe’s other works are Passion Flowers (1854), Words for the Hour (1857), A Trip to Cuba (1860), Later Lyrics (1866), Life of Margaret Fuller (1883). Among the women who, like Mrs. Howe, have added grace and value to our contemporary literature, are Alice 10 146 AMERICAN LITERATURE. and Phoebe Cary, Margaret Preston, Lucy Larcom, Helen Hunt, Celia Thaxter, and Emma Lazarus. Alice and Phoebe Cary, the two sister-poets described by Whittier in “ The Singer,” were born in Ohio — Alice in 1820, Phoebe in 1824. In 1852 the sisters removed to New York and devoted themselves to literary work. Their house in New York attracted the best minds of America. Alice wrote Clovernook Papers , an account of her home-life in Ohio (1851), Pictures of Country Life (1859), Lyrics and Hymns (1866), Snow-berries (1869). The Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary were published in 1850. Both sisters died in 1871. Margaret Preston was born in Philadelphia in 1825, and now lives in Lexington, Virginia. Her principal book of poems was Beechen Brook (1866). Two of her poems, “ Stonewall Jackson’s Grave ” and “ Slain in Battle,” have obtained considerable popularity. Lucy Larcom (1826 ) wrote several patriotic poems during the Civil War. She was encouraged in her literary efforts by John G. Whittier. Her books are Ships in the Mist (1859), Poems (1868), Wild Roses of Cape Ann (1880). Celia Thaxter (1836 ) has lived the greater part of her life at Appledore, upon the Isles of Shoals. She has caught the physiology of the sea, and expressed it in literature better and more thoroughly than any other American poet. Her books are Among the Isles of Shoals (1873), Driftweed (1878), Cruise of the Mystery (1886). “The Sandpiper,” “ The Wreck of the Pocahontas,” “The Watch of Boon Island,” and “ The Spaniards’ Graves ” are among the best of her shorter poems. Emma Lazarus (1849-87) published several excellent poems, translations, and essays. Her principal book was entitled Songs of a Semite. Helen Fiske Hunt Jackson was one of the foremost female writers of America. She wrote under the signature of “ H. H.” in both prose and poetry. She was born in THE POETS. 147 Amherst, Mass., October 18, 1831, and died in San Fran- cisco August 12, 1885. She was a daughter of Professor Nathan Fiske of Amherst, and she married, in 1852, Cap- tain Edward B. Hunt of the United States army, who in 1863 was killed while experimenting with a submarine battery of his own invention. Her second husband was William S. Jackson, a banker of Colorado Springs. She published Verses by H. H. (1870), Bits of Travel (1872), Bits of Travel at Home , in Colorado, California, and New England (1878), Bits of Talk about Home Matters (1876), The Hunter Cats of Connorloa (1884), Zeph (1885), Between -Whiles (1887). She wrote earnestly in defence of the Indians. Two of her books, A Century of Dishonor (1881) and Ramona (1884), are full of indignation at the unrighteous treatment of the Indians. Her style was fresh, vigorous, and often brilliant; her poetry contemplative, subtle, and original. No other pro- ductions of the mind of woman in America have been marked by such high beauty and impetuous feeling. 3. The Western Poets. — California was purchased by the United States in 1848, two years after the annexa- tion of Texas. The report of the discovery of gold caused a great rush to the Pacific coast. Cities sprang up as in a night. A miscellaneous and turbulent popu- lation swarmed in San Francisco and “ prospected ” upon streams and mountains. “ The Argonauts of ’49 ” lived a desperate life of crime and toil. The lawless, reckless life of the gold-hunters — millionaires to-day and beggars to- morrow — was novel, picturesque, and dramatic. It fur- nished great possibilities to a poet or novelist. It was “ an era replete with a certain heroic Greek poetry.” In a few years a literature arose which aimed to ex- press and to interpret the rude, romantic society of the gold-fields. Miners, gamblers, stage-drivers, Indians, Mex- icans, cow-boys, Chinese coolies, ’longshoremen, figured in 148 AMERICAN LITERATURE. the rough and vigorous sketches of the new writers. Not only were the characters new, but the scenery was unusual in literature. The groves of big trees, the stupendous Sierras, the vast canons, the alkaline deserts, stimulated and fascinated the literary imagination. The writers who have made best use in both prose and poetry of this lawless civilization are Bret Harte and Joa- quin Miller. Both have naturally obtained wide popular- ity. The originality of their subjects and the vehemence and truthfulness of their style have won them readers and admirers in many lands. Foreign critics are disposed to catch at such writers as the only really American authors. But a sectional literature cannot be a national literature, and it is not American to talk slang, wear revolvers, and rase out the ten commandments. The representative American man of letters cannot be “ one of the roughs,” though he may seek to depict all phases of life that have contributed to our national character and history. Francis Bret Harte (1839 ) was born in Albany, N. Y., Aug. 25, 1839. He was quite young when his father, who was a teacher and a ripe scholar, died, leaving his family with but little means. The son received a com- mon-school education, and in 1854 went to California, where he was successively school-teacher, miner, compos- itor, and editor. In 1868 he founded The Overland Monthly , a literary journal displaying on its title-page the appro- priate vignette of a grizzly bear crossing a railway-track. In this magazine appeared his first stories of mining life, written for the most part in the audacious slang of the camps. The second number contained “ The Luck of Roaring Camp,” the next “ The Outcasts of Poker Flat.” His first noteworthy poem was “ The Heathen Chinee,” in September, 1870. Other remarkable poems are “ Dow’s Flat,” “John Burns at Gettysburg,” “Chiquita,” “The Row upon the Stanislaw.” Among his books are Condensed Novels (1867), East and THE POETS. 149 West Poems (1871), Mrs. Skaggs’s Husband (1872), Tales of the Argonauts (1875), Gabriel Conroy (1876), Echoes of the Foothills (1879), The Twins of Table Mountain (1879), In the Carquinez Woods (1883), Snow-Bound at Eagle's (1886), A Millionaire of Rough and Ready (1887). Joaquin Miller (1841 ), as he lias chosen to call himself, although his real name is Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, was born in the Wabash district of Indiana. His life has been full of thrilling incident and desperate adventure. He accompanied his parents to Oregon when he was thirteen years old, worked on the farm for three years, and then became a miner in California. He went with Walker into Nicaragua, and lived for a while with a tribe of savages. “ He was miner, astrologer, poet, fili- buster, Indian sachem, and roaming herdsman.” He re- turned to Oregon in 1860 and began the study of law. The next year he was miners’ express-messenger in the gold districts of Idaho. He edited in Lane county, Ore- gon, a weekly newspaper which was suppressed for disloy- alty. From 1866 to 1870 he was county judge in Eastern Oregon. At this period his literary career began. He had very early begun to compose verses, and had recited them at times to the miners with whom he lived. He succeeded in producing rude but forcible lines, although he was igno- rant of the laws of versification. In 1870 he collected sev- eral of his better poems and published them in a volume entitled Songs of the Sierras. In the same year he went abroad. On his return he lived for some years as a journalist in Washington, but in 1887 removed to Cali- fornia, where he now lives. His poems are Songs of the Sunlands (1873), Songs of the Desert (1875), Songs of Italy (1878), Songs of the Mexican Seas (1887), and With Walker in Nicaragua. Among his prose works are The Danites in the Sierras (1881), Shadow's of Shasta (1881), ’ J9 ; or, The Gold-seekers of the Sierras (1884). He has also written a play called The 150 AMERICAN LITERATURE . Danites . The assumed name, “ Joaquin,” under which he writes, was the name of a Mexican brigand whom he defended. Miller has not the dramatic power nor the fine liter- ary skill of Bret Harte. He fails to see the native generosity and noble qualities which lie hidden beneath the vicious lives of outlaws. His chief excellence is his gorgeous pictures of the gigantic scenery of the Sierras. John James Piatt (1835 ), like Edward Eggleston, is a native of Indiana, and is the poet of the prairie and the farmstead. He stands midway between the Eastern and the Western writers, and has a distinctly local and original flavor. He is reflective where the Western poets are dramatic. His verse is simple and quiet where theirs is vehement and passionate. His first book was Poems of Two Friends , published in conjunction with W. D. Howells (1860). He has also written The Nests at Washington (1864), Poems in Sunshine and Firelight (1866), Western Windows , his best book (1869), Landmarks , and Other Poems (1871), Idyls and Lyrics of the Ohio Valley (1884), At the Holy Well (1887). His wife, Sarah Morgan Bryan (1836 ), has also published a number of poems, which are better known than the verses of any female writer of the West. Among her books are A Woman's Poems (1871), A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles (1874), That New World , and Other Poems (1876), Poems in Company with Children (1877), An Irish Garland (1884), In Primrose Time (1886), and Child's World- Ballads (1887). 4. Bayard Taylor and his Friends. — Between the time of the Knickerbockers and the Civil War, literature occu- pied but a small place in the history of New York. After the Civil War the wealth of the commercial centre attracted men of letters and created a literary society. The most prominent figure in all departments of lit- THE POETS. 151 erature was Bayard Taylor, a Pennsylvanian who made New York his literary headquarters. Among his friends whose names are memorable in our contemporary litera- ture were Richard Henry Stoddard, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. In Pennsylvania T. Buchanan Read, George Henry Boker, and Charles G. Leland were closely associated with Taylor. Bayard Taylor (1825-78) was born in Kennett Square? Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1825. After a few years of study in country schools he was apprenticed to a printer in West Chester. Pie had already begun to compose verses, and in 1844, when meditating a trip to Europe, published his first book, Ximena , and Other Poems. In the same year he started abroad with less than one hundred and fifty dollars, and with an order from Horace Greeley for letters to the Tribune. He was gone two years, in which time he travelled over Europe on foot and sup- ported himself entirely by his literary correspondence, for which he received five hundred dollars. On his return he published Views Afoot; or , Europe as Seen with Knapsack and Staff (1846). Six editions were called for within a year, and it is still one of the most delightful books of travel in the language. A Traveller. — Taylor has had few superiors as a writer of books of travel. He was always fresh, easy, and natu- ral. His wandering feet pressed the soil of all the conti- nents and his observing eyes saw the strange and beautiful things of the world from the equator to the frozen North and South. His robust constitution, adventurous spirit, and buoyant temper admirably equipped him for a trav- eller. When gold was discovered in California, Taylor u r as sent out by the Tribune to visit the diggings and write letters upon the discoveries. His correspondence was collected in Eldorado; or, Adventures in the Path of Empire (1850). It is the record of six months’ life in the savage, 152 AMERICAN LITERATURE. lawless society of the mines, and is a faithful picture of the gold-diggings and of California in ’49. In 1851 he again went abroad as a correspondent, visited Egypt and the East, climbed the Himalayas, and spent some time in China and Japan. He returned after two years, and published, as the results of his travels, A Jour- ney to Central Africa (1854), The Lands of the Saracens (1854), and A Visit to Lidia, China , and Japan (1855). Taylor at this time was much in demand as a lecturer, but, the roving disposition being still strong in him, he started in 1856 for the north of Europe. He visited Nor- way and Lapland, travelled five hundred miles within the Arctic Circle, saw the midnight sun, and in 1858 published Northern Travel . His other books of travel were Travels in Greece and Rome (1859), At Home and Abroad (1860), Colorado (1867), Byways of Europe (1869), Travels in Arabia (1872), Egypt and Iceland (1874). A Poet, — But it was not as a traveller that Taylor de- sired to be remembered. His steadfast ambition was to be a poet. He hated the lecture-platform and shrank from the crowds who stared at him as the “ great Ameri- can traveller.” He depended for his living upon his quick and ready pen, which multiplied lectures and prose books, but he depended for his fame upon the silent hours dedi- cated to poetry. His industry was extraordinary. He was always doing the work of several men. His mind was teeming with new plans. He was always writing — “ prose by daylight and poetry by night, a new tandem which I never drove before, but it goes smoothly and well.” His first volume of poems was Rhymes of Travel , Ballads , and Other Poems (1848). His second volume, A Book of Romances , Lyrics , and Songs (1851), contained some of his best poems. Poems of the Orient appeared in 1854. His other poems were The Poet's Journal (1862), The THE POETS. 153 Picture of St. John (1869), The Masque of the Gods (1872), Lars: a Pastoral of Norway (1873), The Prophet: a Tragedy (1874), Home- Pastorals, idyls of Pennsylvania (1875), The National Ode , recited on the 4th of July, 1876, and Prince Deukalion : a Lyrical Drama , describing the progress of humanity (1878). A Novelist. — Taylor wrote four novels: Hannah Thur- ston (1863), John Godfrey’s Fortunes (1864), The Story of Kennett (1866), Joseph and his Friend (1870). The second described New York scenes, but the first and third were entirely Pennsylvanian. The third is much the best as a work of art. A Translator. — Taylor was deeply read in German lit- erature. He made a careful study of Goethe, and made the most successful of the many translations of Faust. It alone would be sufficient to preserve his fame. It ranks with such masterly versions of great poems as Longfellow’s Dante and Bryant’s Homer. His Last Years. — He had married Marie Plansen of Gotha in 1857, and a Jew years later built his spacious country home, “ Cedarcroft.” In 1877 he was appointed minister to Berlin. He died there Dec. 19, 1878. His literary life occupied but thirty-four years. In that time he wrote thirty-seven volumes. He entered almost every department of literature, and always displayed high, though never the highest, literary ability. His Life has been written and his letters edited by Marie Hansen-Tay- lor and Horace E. Scudder. Richard Henry Stoddard (1825 ), although born in New England (in Massachusetts), has made New York his home, and has been there a valued and influential member of the alert literary society of which Bayard Taylor was the most versatile and striking figure. He was poor, was educated in the public schools of New York, and was employed for some years in an iron- foundry. He read eagerly, and soon became acquainted 154 AMERICAN LITERATURE. with the best authors and familiar with the styles of Eng- lish poetry. In 1849 he printed a small edition of his poems in a volume called Footprints . His other works are Songs of Summer (1857), Life, Travels , and Boohs of Alexander von Humboldt (1860), The King’s Bell (1862), Abraham Lincoln : an Horatian Ode (1865), Putnam the Brave (1869), The Booh of the East (1869). Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833 ) is also a New Englander, having been born in Hartford, Conn. He stud- ied at Yale College. About 1856 he removed to New r York, where he became known as a frequent contributor to mag- azines. He is at present a stockbroker in that city. Mr. Stedman has written many poems of great beauty. Among the most popular of them are “ The Diamond Wedding,” “ How Old Brown took Harper’s Ferry,” and “ Alice of Monmouth: an Idyl of the Great War.” His books are Poems , Lyric and Idyllic (1860), Rip Van Winhle and his Wonderful Nap (1870), Hawthorne and Other Poems (1877), Lyrics and Idyls (1879). He has also written two excellent volumes of criticism : Victorian Poets (1875) and Poets of America (1886). Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836 ) was born in Ports- mouth, New Hampshire, but entered the counting-room of his uncle, a merchant in New York, when he was about fifteen years old. He has had a large experience in jour- nalism, and since 1881 has been the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. He is our foremost writer of “society verses.” He has not the rich imagination of Stoddard nor the ver- satility of Stedman, but he surpasses both in delicate ar- tistic skill. His jewelled lines, exquisitely pointed, which express a single mood or a dainty epigram, place him at the head of our lyrical writers. Among his poetical works are Pampinea (1861), Cloth of Gold (1874), Flower and Thorn (1876), Friar Gerome’s Beau - tifv.l Booh (1881). Among his prose works are Out of His Head (1862), Story of a Bad Boy (1870), Marjorie Daw and THE POETS . 155 Other People (1873), Prudence Palfrey (1874), The Queen of Sheba (1877), The Stillwater Tragedy (1880), From Ponkapog to Pesth (1883). Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-72), like Washington Allston, was both poet and painter. He was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania. He studied art in sev- eral Italian schools. As a painter he belongs with the so-called “Pre-Raphaelites’* of England. His poems are patriotic and faithful in their descriptions of American scenery. He published The New Pastoral (1854), The House by the Sea (1856), Sylvia; or, The Lost Shepherd (1857), The Wag- oner of the Alleghanies, a poem of Revolutionary times (1862), The Good Samaritan (1867). His most popular poem was “ Sheridan’s Ride ” (1865). Next in popularity, perhaps, was “ The Closing Scene,” a description of rural life and landscape. “ Drifting ” is a happy experiment in metrical arrangement. George Henry Borer (1823-1890) was a native of Phil- adelphia and the son of a wealthy banker. He was grad- uated at Princeton College in 1842, and studied law, but never engaged in practice. He was appointed, in 1871, minister to Turkey, and was transferred in 1875 to Russia. His best writings are his dramas. They are Calaynos , a tragedy, Anne Boleyn , Leonor de Guzman, and Francesca da Rimini. His first volume of poems was The Lesson of Life (1847). The patriotic poems written by him during the war were collected under the title War Lyrics (1864). He also published Konigsmarlc (1869) and The Book of the Dead (1882). Some of his minor poems, like “A Ballad of Sir John Franklin,” “ On Board the Cumberland,” “ Dirge for a Soldier,” “ The Ivory-Carver,” etc., have been widely popular. 156 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Charles Godfrey Leland (1824 ) was bom in Philadelphia, and was graduated at Princeton. He con- tinued his studies in Germany and France, and after his return to America became a lawyer. He soon aban- doned his profession and gave himself to literature and journalism. He published The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams in 1855, and in the same year Meister Karls Sketch-Book. The latter was full of acute observation, grotesque humor, and curious learning. His most popular works were The Hans Breit- mann Ballads. They were a series of poems in the dia- lect of the Pennsylvania Dutch. “ Hans Breitmann Gif a Barty,” the first ballad of the series, was immensely successful and irresistibly droll. He has also written several works on the Gypsies, whose life and language he has made a special study. Mr. Leland now lives in London. 5. Walt Whitman (1819 ) is the most singular and most puzzling figure in American literature. His works have provoked both praise and blame. He has become ]) 02 )ular in this country, and has been extravagantly praised abroad. He has been hailed as the representa- tive American poet and the true laureate of Democracy. On the other hand, he has been severely censured by many able critics, and the admiration for him has been stigmatized as “Whitmania.” He is altogether original both in thought and style, and has broken with all the traditions of poetry. He was born in West Hills, Long Island, May 31, 1819. His meagre education was received in the public schools of Brooklyn. He became a compositor and afterward a carpenter. During the war he served as a volunteer army-nurse. His experiences and observations at that time took shape in a volume of poems entitled Drum- Taps. “ Leaves of Grass,” Whitman’s first and most important THE POETS. 157 book, was published in 1855. He has continued to add to it and to revise it down to the present year (1889), in which he has issued “an authoritative and personal” edition of his complete writings. He claims to have expressed in this remarkable first volume of poems the spirit of American democracy. He calls it “ my definitive carte de visite to the coming generations of the New World.” Some parts of the book have been censured as immoral, but it is, throughout, clean and wholesome. The roughness and novelty of the book and of the poet were indicated in the defiant rough- and-ready picture of “ Walt,” with hand in pocket, slouched hat, and flannel shirt open at the throat. His other works are Specimen Days and Collect (prose) and November Boughs (prose). He has lived humbly dur- ing recent years in Camden, N. J., where he has been vis- ited by many curious students from far corners of the world. Characteristics. — 1 . Whitman’s egotism is one of his most noticeable traits. A long and remarkable poem is entitled “Song of Myself”: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself; And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loaf and invite my soul ; I lean and loaf at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.” 2. His democracy is a complementary trait to the first. He is impressed with a sense of the absolute equality of all men. He is the poet of the average man. “ Comrade” is the most frequent word in his poems ; “ ensemble ” (/. e. the aggregate of men, the “ cosmos ”) the next frequent. He takes his subjects from the crowded streets ; he de- scribes the ferry-boats, the street-cars, the “ policeman with his star,” the “ mangled fireman,” the “ rough,” and the “ truck-driver ” — 158 AMERICAN LITERATURE. “The blab of the pave; tires of carts; sluff of boot-soles; talk of the promenaders ; The heavy omnibus; the driver with his interrogating thumb; the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor; ******** The flap of the curtained litter, a sick man inside borne to the hos- pital ; The meeting of enemies ; the sudden oath, the blows and fall ; The excited crowd ; the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd” 3. His Slang . — Whitman smears his pages with the com- monest slang and the most hideous newspaper English. He regards with contempt the scholastic speech and pol- ished diction of the great poets. Shakespeare and the bards are, for him, the effete singers of an outworn clas- sicism and feudalism. He will have no speech but the speech of the people. To him nothing is unclean. He handles in the frankest manner the most disgusting sub- jects, and exalts the body where other writers have ana- lyzed the mind and soul. His Verse. — A single glance at one of Whitman’s poems reveals peculiarities of construction that amaze the student who has thought of poetry as obedient to metrical rule. Classical scansion can make nothing ‘of the bad prose which stands for poetry in the larger part of Leaves of Grass; for example “I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons, And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons. This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person ; ******** He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were mass- ive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome. ******** He was a frequent gunner and fisher; he sailed his boat himself; he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner ; he had fowl- ing-pieces presented to him by men that loved him. THE POETS. 159 When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang.” His rugged prose sentences are not poetry, but they do contain a sympathetic soul, and their pathos is at times unmistakable. The Humorists. American humor is a distinct and noticeable feature of American life and literature. It appeared very early in the history of the New England colony, and it underwent rapid development during the Revolution. Its chief cha- racteristics are individuality, recklessness, irreverence, and exaggeration. Our newspapers and comic weeklies are filled with humorous stories, too often cheap and vulgar, but at times grotesque and irresistible. Our most classical writers have been possessed by the merry spirit, have been extremely partial to puns, and have often sacrificed serious- ness to a joke which would not be repressed. Irving’s hu- mor has already been described ; Emerson was slyly fond of a Yankee jest; Dr. Holmes effervesces with perpetual merriment; and Lowell is the author of some of the wittiest lines of the century. Poe alone among the higher names in our literature was really lacking in the appreciation of humor. Chief among the professional humorists of the country are Artemus Ward and Mark Twain. Bret Harte is the representative Western humorist; Seba Smith (1792-1868), who wrote under the name of ‘‘Major Jack Downing,” is a good illustration of Yankee fun and satire. Artemus Ward was the pen-name of Charles Farrar Browne (1834-67). He was a compositor, and subse- quently newspaper reporter and editor. His comic lec- tures were greatly successful in America and in England. 160 AMERICAN LITERATURE. His books were Artemus Ward , his Book; Artemus Ward , his Travels ; and Artemus Ward in London. Mark Twain is the pen-name of Samuel L. Clemens (1835 ), who has made countless thousands laugh and is doubtless the best known humorist in the world. He was born in Missouri, and, like Browne, learned the printing trade. In 1851 he became a pilot on Mississippi River steamboats, and it was there that he got his nom de plume* from hearing the leadsman, sounding a depth of two fathoms, call out to “mark twain.” His first successful publication was The Innocents Abroad (1869). His other books are Roughing It (1872), The Gilded Age (1873), Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), A Tramp Abroad (1880), The Stolen White Elephant (1882), The Prince and the Pauper (1882), Life on the Mississippi (1883), and Huckleberry Finn (1885). Twain sees the world inverted. All its dignities and ancient splendors are fair game for mockery. He pokes fun at the Sphinx and laughs at Columbus and his muti- nous mariners. He drops a tear at the tomb of Adam and makes merry with the most solemn products of the “ old masters.” Miscellaneous Writers. Donald G. Mitchell (1822 ) has written under the pen-name of “ Ik Marvel.” He is the author of Fresh Glean- ings , a book of European travels (1847), Reveries of a Bach- elor (1850), Dream-Life (1851), My Farm of Edgewood (1863), Wet Days at Edgewood (1865), Dr. Johns , a novel whose hero is a Connecticut minister of the olden time (1866).; About Old Story-Tellers (1877), and Bound Together (1884). He now resides near New Haven, Connecticut, upon the farm which he has made so famous in his Edgewood books. * Nom de plume , or pseudonym , or pen-name , signifies a name assumed by an author as his or her signature. THE POETS. 161 Mr. Mitchell is a delightful writer for boys. His English is delicate and beautiful. His sentiment, which was a little cloying in his early books, is charming in his later ones. He writes upon the practical and the ideal aspects of rural life. His sympathy with children, his love for good books, and his appreciation of nature are his chief cha- racteristics. James Parton (1822-1891) was born in Canterbury, England. He was brought to the United States when only five years old, and was educated in New York City. He has been an industrious writer, and has published a large number of books upon various subjects. He con- ceives his subjects with great care, and his style is highly skilful and interesting. Among his books are Life and Times of Aaron Burr , Life of Andrew Jackson , General Butler in New Orleans , Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin , Fa- mous Americans of Recent Times , Smoking and Drinking , A Life of Voltaire , Ccvptains of Industry. Mr. Parton in 1856 married “Fanny Fern” (1811-72), the well-known writer for the New York Ledger and sister of Nathaniel P. Willis. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823 ) has been active in public life, and was prominent in the anti-slavery agitation. He was indicted, in company with Theodore Parker and Wendell Phillips, for murder in attempting to rescue a fugitive slave from the United States officers. During the war he was colonel of the first regiment of black troops that was mustered into service. Mr. Higginson is a vigorous, virile writer, and handles breezy, wholesome subjects in a pure and earnest way. He is particularly happy in emphasizing the virtues of outdoor life and the necessity of physical culture for the American scholar. He is the author of Outdoor Papers (1863), Malbone: an Oldport Romance (1869), Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870), Atlantic Essays (1871), Oldport Days (1873), Young li 162 AMERICAN LITERATURE . Folks ’ History of the United States (1875), Life of Margaret Fuller (1884), etc. Charles Dudley Warner (1829 ) was born in Plainfield, Massachusetts. He was graduated at Hamil- ton College in 1851. In 1853 he joined a surveying party on the frontier of Missouri, and in a year’s time famil- iarized himself with the peculiarities of frontier-life. He studied law in Philadelphia, and practised his profession in Chicago, but in 1860 removed to Hartford, Connecticut, which is now his home. He has edited the Hartford Cou- rant , and since 1884 has been one of the editors of Harper’s Magazine. He is the author of Being a Boy , an amusing and true account of rural life in New England a half century ago (1867), My Summer in a Garden (1870), Saunterings (1870), Back-Log Studies (1872), Baddeck , and that Sort of Thing (1874), My Winter on the Nile (1876), In the Levant (1877), Washington Irving (1881), Roundabout Journey (1883), Their Pilgrimage (1886), and On Horseback (1888). Warner’s mellow and refined humor is his chief charac- teristic. Literary Scholars. — Besides critics like Lowell and Stedman, there have been in recent years an increasing number of good minds devoting themselves to the care- ful study and historical investigation of language and lit- erature. America has taken a prominent and important place in the study of comparative philology. Men like Francis James Child (1825 ) of Harvard, editor of the English Ballads , and Moses Coit Tyler (1835 ) of Cornell, author of the History of American Literature , have produced works which are enduring monuments to American scholarship. The study of Shakespeare has particularly engaged the attention of our scholars. The names of Richard Grant White and Horace Howard Furness are among the most important in Shakespearian scholarship. THE POETS . 163 Richard Grant White was born in New York May 22, 1821, and died there April 8, 1885. He was educated in his native city, studied law, but abandoned the profession and engaged in purely literary pursuits. His philological works were Words and their Uses (1870) and Every-day Eng- lish (1881). His Shakespearian contributions were Shake- speare's Scholar (1854), a fine edition of The Works of Wil- liam Shakespeare , annotated, in twelve volumes (1857-65), Essay on the Authorship of the Three Parts of Henry the Sixth (1859), Memoirs of William Shakespeare (1865), and, after he had lost his early enthusiasm for the subject of his studies, The Riverside Edition of the Works of Shakespeare (1883). His last publication was Studies in Shakespeare , a collection of essays contributed to the magazines (1885). Mr. White was a critic of great shrewdness and com- mon sense. In the explanation of obscure lines he dis- played considerable acumen, though he was not possessed of the sweep of mind necessary to the successful interpre- tation of dramatic art and purpose. Horace Howard Furness (1833 ), the greatest liv- ing Shakespeare scholar, has been engaged since 1870 upon a new variorum edition. The plays thus far published are Romeo and Juliet , Macbeth , Hamlet , King Lear , Othello , The Merchant of Venice , and As You Like It. Great learning, fine critical skill, and an exquisite literary style are com- bined and illustrated in this work, which is one of the best of American scholastic achievements. The Journalists. — Connected with the newspapers and magazines of our chief cities are many men of more than ordinary literary ability. Three New York journalists are worthy of particular mention: they are Parke Godwin, William Winter, and Richard Watson Gilder. Parke Godwin (1816 ) married the eldest daughter of William Cullen Bryant. He was for a time editor of Putnam's Monthly , has contributed to many magazines, and is now the editor of the New York Nation , the best of Amer- 164 AMERICAN LITERATURE. ican weekly journals. He has written Constructive Democ- racy ; Vala: a Mythological Tale; Out of the Past , a volume of serious essays ; and has edited an edition of Bryant’s works with a Life. William Winter (1836 ) has been since 1865 dra- matic critic for the New York Tribune. He has written several poems of unmistakable beauty, and some prose books of pure and noble sentiment. Among his works are The Convent , and Other Poems (1854), The Queen's Domain , and Other Poems (1858), Life of Edwin Booth (1871), Thistledown: a Book of Lyrics (1878), The Trip to England (1879), The Jeffersons (1881), Henry Irving (1885), The Stage-Life of Mary Anderson (1886), English Rambles (1884), and Shakespeare's England (1886). Richard Watson Gilder (1844 ) has been since 1881 editor-in-chief of The Century. He has published four volumes of neat verse : The New Day , The Poet and his Master , Lyrics , and The Celestial Passion. Mr. Gilder is a brother of William Henry Gilder, the Arctic explorer. John Burroughs (1837 ) belongs with the out-of- door writers, and is the most important representative of that group since Thoreau. He bears some resemblance to the late Richard Jefferies of England, the author of The Gamekeeper at Home , but is not so metaphysical as he. Mr. Burroughs has written Walt Whitman as Poet and Person (1867), Wake Robin (1871), Winter Sunshine (1875), Birds and Poets (1877), Locusts and Wild Honey (1879), Pe- pacton (1881), Fresh Fields (1884), and Signs and Seasons (1886). His knowledge of nature is intimate and peculiar, and his style is crisp, clear, and invigorating. READINGS. R E ADINGS. COTTON MATHER. Literary Style. [From “ Manuductio ad Ministerium ” — i. e. “ Directions for a Candi- date for the Ministry .”] There is a way of writing wherein the author endeavors that the reader may have something to the purpose in every paragraph. There is not only a vigor sensible in every sen- tence, but the paragraph is embellished with profitable ref- erences, even to something beyond what is directly spoken. Formal and painful quotations are not studied ; yet all that could be learned from them is insinuated. The writer pre- tends not unto reading, yet he could not have writ as he does if he had not read very much in his time ; and his composures are not only a cloth of gold, but also stuck with as many jewels as the gown of a Russian ambassador. This way of writing has been decried by many, and is at this day more than ever so, for the same reason that in the old story the grapes were decried, “ that they were not ripe.” A lazy, ignorant, conceited set of authors would persuade the whole tribe to lay aside that way of writing, for the same reason that one would have persuaded his brethren to part with the incumbrance of their bushy tails. But, 167 168 AMERICAN LITERATURE . however fashion and humor* may prevail, they must not think that the club at their coffee-house is all the world. But there will always be those who will in this case be governed by indisputable reason, and who will think that the real excellency of a book will never lie in saying of little ; that the less one has for his money in a book, ’tis really the more valuable for it ; and that the less one is instructed in a book, and the more of superfluous margin and superficial harangue, and the less of substantial mat- ter, one has in it, the more ’tis to be accounted of. And if a more massy way of writing be never so much disgusted at this day, a better gustf will come on. Note. — This passage should be compared with the following selec- tion from Benjamin Franklin. The former illustrates and defends the literary manner of the seventeenth century, the latter that of the eight- eenth century. The first is the plea of the most learned of colonial Americans ; the other is the story of the origin of the style of the first of Revolutionary writers. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Passages from his Autobiography. his cultivation of style. From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim’s Progress , my first col- lection was of John Bunyan’s works, in separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton’s Historical Collections; they were small chap- men’s books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all. My father’s little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, * Caprice, f Taste, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 169 at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch’s Lives there was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of De Foe’s, called an Essay on Projects , and another of Dr. Mather’s, called Essays to Do Good , which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life. This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters, to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman’s wages dur- ing the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the great- est part of the night when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted. And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Mat- thew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it might 170 AMERICAN LITERATURE. turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called The Lighthouse Trag- edy , and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters: the other was a sail- or’s song on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-Street-ballad style ; and when they were printed he sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being- recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my van- ity ; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my per- formances and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one ; but as prose-writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situa- tion, I acquired what little ability I have in that way. . . . About this time I met with an odd volume of the Specta- tor. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the senti- ment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses ; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 171 mind and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse, and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By compar- ing my work afterward with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them ; but I sometimes had the pleas- ure of fancying that in certain particulars of small import I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language ; and this encouraged me to think I might pos- sibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public wor- ship which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it. . . . HIS FIRST ENTRY INTO PHILADELPHIA. I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my journey ; my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul, nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with travelling, rowing, and want of rest ; I was very hungry, and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the 172 AMERICAN LITERATURE. people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it on account of my rowing ; but I insisted on their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little. Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till, near the market-house, I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker’s he directed me to, in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife’s father ; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridic- ulous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street, and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water ; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers, near the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking- round a while and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy THOMAS JEFFERSON. 173 through labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, there- fore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadel- phia. . . . TO WILLIAM STRAHAN, AFTER THE WAR HAD BEGUN. Mr. Strahan, You are a member of Parliament, and one of that major- ity which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands ; they are stained with the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy, and I am Yours, B. Franklin. Philadelphia, 5 July, 1775. THOMAS JEFFERSON. An Anecdote of Franklin. [From Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Men.'] When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave offence to some members. The words “ Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries ” excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country. Several strictures on the conduct of the British king in negotiating our repeated repeals of the law which permitted the im- portation of slaves were disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence of that traffic. Although the offensive 174 AMERICAN LITERATURE. expressions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued their depredations on other parts of the instru- ment. I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to these mutilations. “ I have made it a rule,” said he, “ whenever in my power, to avoid be- coming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, £ John Thomp- son, Hatter , makes and sells hats for ready money,’ with the figure of a hat subjoined ; but he thought he would sub- mit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word 1 Hatter ’ tautologous, be- cause followed by the words 1 makes hats,’ which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word ‘ makes ’ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words ‘for ready money ’ were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit ; every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, ‘ John Thompson sells hats.’ ‘Sells hats 1 ? says his next friend. ‘Why, nobody will expect you to give them away ; what then is the use of that word ?’ It was stricken out, and ‘ hats ’ followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So the inscription was reduced ultimately to ‘John Thompson,’ with the figure of a hat subjoined.” THOMAS JEFFERSON. 175 The Mountains of Virginia. [From Notes on Virginia .] The passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge is, perhaps, one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature. You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Potomac, in quest of a passage also. In the moment of. their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea. The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion that this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow afterward, that in 'this place, particularly, they have been dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley — that, continuing to rise, they have at length broken over at this spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disrupture and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents of Nature, corroborate the impression. But the distant finish- ing which Nature has given to the picture is of a very dif- ferent character. It is a true contrast to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful as that is wild and tremend- ous. For the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon at an infinite distance in the plain country, invit- ing you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around to pass through the breach and participate of the calm be- low. Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that way, too, the road happens actually to lead. You cross the Potomac above the junction, pass along its side through 176 A MERIC AN LITER A TUBE. the base of the mountain for three miles, its terrible preci- pices hanging in fragments over you, and within about twenty miles reach Fredericktown and the fine country round that. This scene is worth a voyage across the At- lantic. Yet here, as in the neighborhood of the Natural Bridge, are people who have passed their lives within half a dozen miles, and have never been to survey these monu- ments of a war between rivers and mountains which must have shaken the earth itself to its centre. WILLIAM WIRT. The Blind Preacher* [From The Letters of the British Spy.] It was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous old wooden house in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects before in travelling through these States, I had no diffi- culty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship. Devotion alone should have stopped me to join in the duties of the congregation ; but I must confess that curios- ity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the least of my motives. On entering I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare old man ; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy, and a few moments ascer- tained to me that he was perfectly blind. * James Waddel, “the blind preacher,” was born in Ireland in 1739, and died in Louisa county, Va., 17th Sept., 1805. He was the teacher of James Madison. Wirt’s account of him was written in 1803. WILLIAM WIRT. 177 The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. But, ah ! . . . how soon were all my feelings changed ! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees than were the lips of this holy man. It was a day of the administration of the sacrament, and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times : 1 had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose that in the wild woods of America I was to meet with a man whose elo- quence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than 1 had ever before witnessed. As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mys- tic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human, solemnity in his air and manner which made my blood run cold and my whole frame shiver. He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour — his trial before Pilate, his ascent up Calvary, his cruci- fixion, and his death. I knew the whole history, but never until then had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored. It was all new, and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enuncia- tion was so deliberate that his voice trembled on every syllable, and every heart in the assembly trembled in uni- son. His peculiar phrases had that force of description that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews — the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet : my soul kindled with a flame of indignation and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clenched. But when he came to touch on the patience, the for- giving meekness, of our Saviour ; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven, his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, “ Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” the voice of the preacher, which had all 12 178 AMERICAN LITERATURE. along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans and sobs and shrieks of the congregation. It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious, standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But no ; the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. The first sentence with which he broke the awful silence was a quotation from Rousseau : “ Socrates died like a phil- osopher, but Jesus Christ like a God.” I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the wdiole manner of the man as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely under- stand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher ; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses ; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, sol- emn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the pitch of pas- sion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised ; and then the few minutes of portentous, death-like silence which reigned throughout the house ; the preacher, remov- ing his white handkerchief from his aged face, even yet w r et from the recent torrent of his tears, and slowly stretch- JOSEPH STOP Y. 179 ing forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sen- tence, “Socrates died like a philosopher” — then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both, clasped to- gether, with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his “ sightless balls ” to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice, “ but Jesus Christ — like a God!” If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine. Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity of Massillon or the force of Bourdaloue had fallen far short of the power which I felt from the delivery of this simple sentence. The blood which just before had rushed in a hurricane upon my brain, and, in the violence and agony of my feelings, had held my whole system in suspense, now ran back into my heart with a sensation which I cannot describe — a kind of shuddering, delicious horror. The paroxysms of blended pity and indignation to which I had been transported subsided into the deepest self-abase- ment, humility, and adoration. I had just been lacerated and dissolved by sympathy for our Saviour as a fellow- creature, but now, with fear and trembling, I adored him as — “ a God.” JOSEPH STORY. The Lawyer. [From his Inaugural Discourse at Harvard, 1829.] The perfect lawyer, like the perfect orator, must accom- plish himself for his duties by familiarity with every study. It may be truly said that to him nothing that concerns human nature or human art is indifferent or useless. He should search the human heart, and explore to their sources the passions and appetites and feelings of mankind. He 180 AMERICAN LITERATURE . should watch the motions of the dark and malignant pas- sions as they silently approach the chambers of the soul in its first slumbers. He should catch the first warm rays of sympathy and benevolence as they play around the cha- racter and are reflected back from its varying lines. He should learn to detect the cunning arts of the hypocrite, who pours into the credulous and unwary ear his leper- ous distilment. He should for this purpose make the master-spirits of all ages pay contribution to his labors. He should walk abroad through Nature, and elevate his thoughts and warm his virtues by a contemplation of her beauty and magnif- icence and harmony. He should examine well the precepts of religion as the only solid basis of civil society, and gather from them not only his duty, but his hopes — not merely his consolations, but his discipline and his glory. He should unlock all the treasures of history for illustration and instruction and admonition. He will thus see man as he has been, and thereby best know what he is. He will thus be taught to distrust theory and cling to practi- cal good — to rely more upon experience than reasoning, more upon institutions than law r s, more upon checks to vice than upon motives to virtue. He will become more indulgent to human errors ; more scrupulous in means as well as ends; more wise, more candid, more forgiving, more disinterested. If the melancholy infirmities of his race shall make him trust men less, he may yet learn to love men more. Nor should he stop here. He must drink in the lessons and spirit of philosophy. I do not mean the philosophy described by Milton as “A perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns, 1 ” but that philosophy which is conversant with men’s busi- ness and interests, with the policy and the welfare of na- PHILIP FREE E A U. 181 tions ; that philosophy which dwells not in vain imagina- tions and Platonic dreams, but which stoops to life and enlarges the boundaries of human happiness ; that philos- ophy which sits by us in the closet, cheers us by the fire- side, walks with us in the fields and highways, kneels with us at the altars, and lights up the enduring flame of patriotism. PHILIP FRENEAU. The Indian Burying-Ground. In spite of all the learned have said, I still my old opinion keep : The posture that we give the dead Points out the soul’s eternal sleep. Not so the ancients of these lands : The Indian, when from life released, Again is seated with his friends, And shares again the joyous feast. His imaged birds, and painted bowl, And venison for a journey drest, Bespeak the nature of the soul, Activity that wants no rest. His bow for action ready bent, And arrows with a head of stone, Can only mean that life is spent, And not the old ideas gone. Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way, No fraud upon the dead commit ; 182 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Observe the swelling turf, and say, They do not lie , but here they sit. Here still a lofty rock remains, On which the curious eye may trace (Now wasted half by wearing rains) The fancies of a ruder race. Here still an aged elm aspires, Beneath whose far-projecting shade (And which the shepherd still admires) The children of the forest played. There oft a restless Indian queen (Pale Shebah with her braided hair), And many a barbarous form is seen To chide the man that lingers there. By midnight moons, o’er moistening dews, In vestments for the chase arrayed, The hunter still the deer pursues — The hunter and the deer a shade. And long shall timorous Fancy see The painted chief and pointed spear; And reason’s self shall bow the knee To shadows and delusions here. The Wild Honeysuckle. Fair flower that dost so comely grow Hid in this silent, dull retreat, Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet ; No roving foot shall crush thee here, No busy hand provoke a tear. WASHINGTON IRVING. 183 By Nature’s self in white arrayed, She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, And planted here the guardian shade And sent soft waters murmuring by ; Thus quietly thy summer goes, Thy days declining to repose. Smit with those charms that must decay, I grieve to see your future doom ; They died — nor were those flowers more gay, The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; Unpitying frosts and Autumn’s power Shall leave no vestige of this flower. From morning suns and evening dews At first thy little being came ; If nothing once, you nothing lose, For when you die you are the same ; The space between is but an hour, The frail duration of a flower. WASHINGTON IRVING. WOUTER VAN TWILLER. [From The History of New York.'] The renowned Wouter (or AValter) van Twiller was de- scended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters who had successively dozed away their lives and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam, and who had com- ported themselves with such singular wisdom and pro- priety that they were never either heard or talked of; which, next to being universally applauded, should be the 184 AMERICAN LITERATURE. object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world: one by talking faster than they think, and the other by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts ; by the other many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual re- mark which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to Governor van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke except in monosyllables ; but then it w r as allowed he sel- dom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to laugh, or even to smile, through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence that set light- minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much explana- tion, the joke was made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, “ Well, I see nothing in all that to laugh about.” With all his reflective habits he never made up his mind on a subject. His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his ideas. He con- ceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain it is that if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague, mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at length observe that c% he had his doubts about the matter which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not easily imposed upon. What is more, it gained him a lasting name, for to WASHINGTON IRVING . 185 this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of T wilier, which is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain English, Doubter. The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and proportioned as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning Dutch statuary as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches in height and six feet five inches in circum- ference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stu- pendous dimensions that Dame Nature, with all her sex’s ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his back- bone, just between the shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious at bottom, which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of seden- tary habits and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain ; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which dis- figure the human countenance with what is termed expres- sion. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenburg apple. His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each ; he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned AVouter van Twiller — a true philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had 186 AMERICAN LITERATURE. lived in it for years without feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it or it round the sun ; and he had watched, for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling without once troubling his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philosopher would have perplexed his brain in accounting for its rising above the surrounding atmo- sphere. In his council he presided with great state and solem- nity. He sat in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the cele- brated forest of The Hague, fabricated by an experienced timberman of Amsterdam, and curiously carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic eagle’s claws. Instead of a sceptre he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmine and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would he sit ; and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam which hung in a black frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it has even been said that when any deliberation of extraordi- nary length and intricacy was on the carpet the renowned Wouter would shut his eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by external objects ; and at such times the internal commotion of his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict made by his contending doubts and opinions. . . . The very outset of the career of this excellent magis- trate was distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable admin- istration. The morning after he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his break- fast from a prodigious earthen dish filled with milk and WASHINGTON IRVING. 187 Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he refused to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favor of the said Wandle. Governor van T wilier, as I have already observed, was a man of few words ; he was like- wise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings — or being disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively to the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occa- sional grunt as he shovelled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth — either as a sign that he relished the dish or comprehended the story — he called unto him his con- stable, and, pulling out of his breeches pocket a huge jack- knife, despatched it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant. This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was the seal ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers. The two parties being con- fronted before him, each produced a book of accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled any but a High Dutch commentator or a learned decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and, having poised them in his hands and attentively counted over the number of leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour without saying a word. At length, laying his finger beside his nose and shutting his eyes for a moment with the air of a man who has just caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvellous gravity counted over the leaves and weighed the books ; it was found that one was just as thick and as heavy as the other — therefore it was the final opinion of the court that the accounts were equally balanced ; there- fore Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent 188 AMERICAN LITERATURE. should give Wandle a receipt, and the constable should pay the costs. This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that they had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its hap- piest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place throughout the whole of his administration, and the office of constable fell into such decay that there was not one of those losel scouts known in the province for many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on this transaction, not only because I deem it one of the most sage and righteous judgments on record and well worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because it was a miraculous event in the history of the renowned Wouter — being the only time he was ever known to come to a decision in the whole course of his life. The Charms of Rural Life. [From The Sketch-Book .] In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty ; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest and most elevating of ex- ternal influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, there- fore, finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the distinctions of rank and to enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyments of common life. Indeed, the very amusements of the country bring men more and more together, and the sound of hound and horn blends all feelings into harmony. I WA SHING TON IR VTNG. 189 believe this is one great reason why the nobility and gen- try are more popular among the inferior orders in Eng- land than they are in any other country, and why the latter have endured so many excessive pressures and ex- tremities without repining more generally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege. To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life; those incomparable descriptions of Nature that abound in the British poets that have continued down from “ The Flower and the Leaf ” of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they had paid Nature an occasional visit and become acquainted with her general charms; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her, they have wooed her in her most secret haunts, they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze, a leaf could not rustle to the ground, a diamond drop could not patter in the stream,, a fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed hy these impassioned and delicate observers and wrought up into some beautiful morality. The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupations has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great part of the island is rather level, and would be monotonous were it not for the charms of culture ; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home-scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture ; and as the roads are continually winding and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is de- 190 AMERICAN LITER A TURE\ lighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness. The great charm, however, of English scenery is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober, well-estab- lished principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Everything seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture, with its low, massive portal, its Gothic tower, its windows rich with tracery and painted glass in scrupulous preser- vation ; its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil ; its tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry whose progeny still plough the same fields and kneel at the same altar ; the parsonage, a quaint, irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the tastes of various ages and occupations ; the stile and foot- path leading from the churchyard across pleasant fields and along shady hedgerows, according to an immemorial right of way ; the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green sheltered by trees under which the forefathers of the present race have sported ; the an- tique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene ; — all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security and hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and local attachments that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation. It is a pleasing sight of a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church ; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings gathering about their cottage-doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and em- WASHINGTON IRVING. 191 bellishments which their own hands have spread around them. It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affec- tion in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments. Moonlight on the Alhambra. [From The Alhambra.'] On taking up my abode in the Alhambra, one end of a suite of empty chambers of modern architecture, intended for the residence of the governor, was fitted up for my re- ception. It was in front of the palace, looking forth upon the esplanade. The farther end communicated with a cluster of little chambers, partly Moorish, partly modern, inhabited by Tia Antonia and her family. These termi- nated in a large room which served the good old dame for parlor, kitchen, and hall of audience. It had boasted of some splendor in the time of the Moors, but a fireplace had been built in one corner, the smoke from which had discolored the walls, nearly obliterated the ornaments, and spread a sombre tint over the whole. From these gloomy apartments a narrow blind corridor and a dark winding staircase led down an angle of the Tower of Comares; groping down which, and opening a small door at the bot- tom, you are suddenly dazzled by emerging into the bril- liant antechamber of the Hall of Ambassadors, with the fountain of the Court of the Alberca sparkling before you. I was dissatisfied with being lodged in a modern and frontier apartment of the palace, and longed to ensconce myself in the very heart of the building. As I was rambling one day about the Moorish halls I found, in a remote gallery, a door which I had not before noticed, communicating apparently with an extensive 192 AMERICAN LITERATURE. apartment locked up from the public. Here, then, was a mystery; here was the haunted wing of the castle. I procured the key, however, without difficulty. The door opened to a range of vacant chambers of European archi- tecture, though built over a Moorish arcade along the little garden of Lindaraxa. There were two lofty rooms, the ceilings of which were of deep panel-work of cedar, richly and skilfully carved with fruits and flowers, inter- mingled with grotesque masks or faces, but broken in many places. The walls had evidently, in ancient times, been hung with damask, but were now naked and scrawled over with the insignificant names of aspiring travellers ; the windows, which were dismounted and open to wind and weather, looked into the garden of Lindaraxa, and the orange and citron trees flung their branches into the chambers. . . . The first night I passed in these quarters was inexpres- sibly dreary. I was escorted by the whole family to my chamber, and their taking leave of me and retiring along the waste antechamber and echoing galleries, reminded me of those hobgoblin stories where the hero is left to accomplish the adventures of a haunted house. Soon the thoughts of the fair Elizabetta and the beauties of her court, who had once graced these chambers, now by a perversion of fancy added to the gloom. Here was the scene of their transient gayety and loveliness ; here were the very traces of their elegance and enjoyment ; but what and where were they? Dust and ashes ! tenants of the tomb ! phan- toms of the memory ! A vague and indescribable awe was creeping over me. I would fain have ascribed it to the thoughts of robbers awakened by the evening’s conversation, but I felt that it was something more unusual and absurd. In a word, the long-buried impressions of the nursery were reviving and asserting their power over my imagination. Everything began to be affected by the workings of my mind. The WASHINGTON IRVING. 193 whispering of the wind among the citron trees beneath my window had something sinister. I cast my eyes into the garden of Lindaraxa : the groves presented a gulf of shadows; the thickets had indistinct and ghostly shapes. I was glad to close the window, but my chamber itself be- came infected. A bat had found its way in, and flitted about my head and athwart my solitary lamp ; the gro- tesque faces carved in the cedar ceiling seemed to mope and mow at me. . . . I have given a picture of my apartment on my first tak- ing possession of it; a few evenings have produced a thor- ough change in the scene and in my feelings. The moon, which was then invisible, has gradually gained upon the nights, and now rolls in full splendor above the flowers, pouring a flood of tempered light into every court and hall. The garden beneath my window is gently lighted up ; the orange and citron trees are tipped with silver ; the fountain sparkles in the moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose is faintly visible. I have sat for hours at my window inhaling the sweet- ness of the garden and musing on the chequered features of those whose history is dimly shadowed out in the ele- gant memorials around. Sometimes I have issued forth at midnight, when everything was quiet, and have wan- dered over the whole building. Who can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and in such a place ? The temperature of an Andalusian midnight in summer is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer atmosphere; there is a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of frame, that render mere existence enjoyment. The effect of moonlight, too, on the Alham- bra has something like enchantment. Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering tint and weather-stain, disappears; the marble resumes its original whiteness; the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams ; the halls are illuminated with a softened radiance, until the whole 13 194 AMERICAN LITERATURE. edifice reminds one of the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale. At such times I have ascended to the little pavilion called the Queen’s Toilette to enjoy its varied and exten- sive prospect. To the right, the snowy summits of the Sierra Nevada would gleam like silver clouds against the darker firmament, and all the outlines of the mountain would be softened, yet delicately defined. My delight, however, would be to lean over the parapet of the tocador and gaze down upon Granada, spread out like a map be- low me — all buried in deep repose, and its white palaces and convents sleeping as it were in the moonshine. Sometimes I would hear the faint sounds of castanets from some party of dancers lingering in the Alameda ; at other times I have heard the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of a single voice rising from some solitary street, and have pictured to myself some youthful cavalier sere- nading his lady’s window — a gallant custom of former days, but now sadly on the decline, except in the remote towns and villages of Spain. Such are the scenes that have detained me for many an hour loitering about the courts and balconies of the castle, enjoying the mixture of reverie and sensation which steals away existence in a southern climate; and it has been almost morning before I have retired to my bed and been lulled to sleep by the falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 195 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. At the End of America. [From The Sea Lions .] Directly ahead of the schooner rose a sort of pyra- mid of broken rocks, which, occupying a small island, stood isolated in a measure, and some distance in advance of other and equally rugged ranges of mountains, which belonged also to islands detached from the mainland thou- sands of years before under some violent convulsion of Nature. It was quite apparent that all on board the schooner re- garded that rugged pyramid with lively interest. Most of the crew were collected on the forecastle, including the officers, and all eyes were fastened on the ragged pyramid which they were diagonally approaching. The principal spokesman was Stimson, the oldest mariner on board, and one who had oftener visited those seas than any other of the crew. “You know the spot, do you, Stephen?” demanded Roswell Gardiner, with interest. “ Yes, sir; there’s no mistake. That’s the Horn. Eleven times have I doubled it, and this is the third time that I’ve been so close in as to get a fair sight of it. Once I went inside, as I’ve told you, sir.” ' “ I have doubled it six times myself,” said Gardiner, “ but never saw it before. Most navigators give it a wide berth. ’Tis said to be the stormiest spot on the known earth.” “ That’s a mistake, you may depend on’t, sir. The sow- westers blow great guns hereabouts, it is true enough ; and when they do, sich a sea comes tumbling in on that rock as man never seed anywhere else perhaps; but, on the whull, I’d rather be close in here than two hundred miles 196 AMERICAN LITERATURE . farther to the southward. With the wind at sow-west and heavy, a better start might be made from the southern position ; but here I know where I am, and I’d go in and anchor, and wait for the gale to blow itself out.” “ Talking of seas, Captain Gar’ner,” observed Hazard, “ don’t you think, sir, we begin to feel the swell of the Pacific? Smooth as the surface of the water is, here is a ground-swell rolling in that must be twelve or fifteen feet in height.” “There’s no doubt of that. We have felt the swell of the Pacific these two hours; no man can mistake that. The Atlantic has no such waves. This is an ocean in reality, and this is its stormiest part. The wind fresh- ens and hauls, and I’m afraid we are about to be caught close in here with a regular sow-west gale.” “Let it come, sir, let it come,” put in Stimson again; “ if it does, we’ve only to run in and anchor. I can stand pilot, and I promise to carry the schooner where twenty sow-westers will do her no harm. What I’ve seen done once I know can be done again. The time will come when the Horn will be a reg’lar harbor.” . . . In order that the reader may better understand those incidents of our narrative which we are about to relate, it may be well to say a word of the geographical features of the region to which he has been transported — in fiction, if not in fact. At the southern extremity of the American continent is a cluster of islands which are dark, sterile, rocky, and most of the year covered with snow. Ever- greens relieve the aspect of sterility in places that are a little sheltered, and there is a meagre vegetation, in spots, that serves to sustain animal life. The first strait which separates this cluster of islands from the main is that of Magellan, through which vessels occasionally pass in pref- erence to going farther south. Then comes Tierra del Fuego, which is much the largest of all the islands. To the southward of Tierra del Fuego lies a cluster of many JAMES FENIMOBE COOPER. 197 small islands which bear different names, though the group farthest south of all, and which it is usual to consider as the southern termination of our noble continent, but which is not on a continent at all, is known by the appropriate appellation of the Hermits. If solitude and desolation and want and a contemplation of some of the sublimest features of this earth can render a spot fit for a hermitage, these islands are very judiciously named. The one that is farthest south contains the cape itself, which is marked by the ragged pyramid of rock already mentioned, placed there by Nature, a never-tiring sentinel of the war of the elements. Behind this cluster of the Hermits it was that Stimson advised his officer to take refuge against the ap- proaching gale, of which the signs were now becoming obvious and certain. . . . “ You are quite sure that this high peak is the Horn, Stimson?” Gardiner observed, inquiringly. “ Sartain of it, sir. There’s no mistaking sich a place, which, once seen, is never forgotten.” “ It agrees with the charts and our reckoning, and I may say it agrees with our eyes also. — Here is the Pacific Ocean plain enough, Mr. Hazard.” “ So I think, sir. We are at the end of Ameriky, if it has an end anywhere. This heavy long swell is an old acquaintance, though I never was in close enough to see the land hereabouts before.” “ It is fortunate we have one trusty hand on board who can stand pilot. — Stimson, I intend to go in and anchor, and I shall trust to you to carry me into a snug berth.” “ I’ll do it, Captain Gar’ner, if the weather will permit it,” returned the seaman, with an unpretending sort of confidence that spoke well for his ability. Preparations were now commenced in earnest to come to. It was time that some steady course should be adopted, as the wind was getting up and the schooner was rapidly approaching the land. In half an hour the 198 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Sea-Lion was bending to a little gale, with her canvas reduced to close-reefed mainsail and foresail and the bon- net off her jib. The sea was fast getting up, though it came in long and mountain-like. Roswell dreaded the mist. Could he pass through the narrow channels that Stimson had described to him with a clear sky, one half of his causes of anxiety would be removed. But the wind was not a clear one, and he felt that no time was to be lost. It required great nerve to approach a coast like that of Cape Horn in such weather. As the schooner got nearer to the real cape, the sight of the seas tumbling in and breaking on its ragged rock, and the hollow roaring sound they made, actually became terrific. To add to the awe inspired in the breast of even the most callous-minded man on board, came a doubt whether the schooner could weather a certain point of rock, the western extremity of the island, after she had got so far into a bight as to ren- der wearing questionable if not impossible. Every one now looked grave and anxious. Should the schooner go ashore in such a place, a single minute would suffice to break her to pieces, and not a soul could expect to be saved. Roswell was exceedingly anxious, though he remained cool. “ The tides and eddies about these rocks, and in so high a latitude, sweep a vessel like chips,” he said to his chief mate. “ We have been set in here by an eddy, and a terrible place it is.” “All depends on our gear’s holding on, sir,” was the answer, “ with a little on Providence. Just watch the point ahead, Captain Gar’ner: though we are not act- ually to leeward of it, see with what a drift we have drawn upon it. The manner in which these seas roll in from the sow-west is terrific. No craft can go to windward against them.” This remark of Hazard’s was very just. The seas that JAMES FEN I M OB E COOPER. 199 came down upon the cape resembled a rolling prairie in their outline. A single wave would extend a quarter of a mile from trough to trough, and as it passed beneath the schooner, lifting her high in the air, it really seemed as if the glancing water would sweep her away in its force. But human art had found the means to counteract even this imposing display of the power of Nature. The little schooner rode over the billows like a duck, and when she sank between two of them, it was merely to rise again on a new summit and breast the gale gallantly. It was the cur- rent that menaced the greatest danger; for that, unseen except in its fruits, was clearly setting the little craft to leeward and bodily toward the rocks. By this time our adventurers were so near to the land that they almost gave up hope itself. Cape Hatteras and its much-talked-of dan- ger seemed a place of refuge compared to that in which our navigators now found themselves. Could the deepest bel- lowings of ten thousand bulls be united in a common roar, the noise would not have equalled that of the hollow sound which issued from a sea as it went into some cavern of the rocks. Then the spray filled the air like driving rain, and there were minutes when the cape, though so frightfully near, was hid from view by the vapor. At this precise moment the Sea-Lion was less than a quarter of a mile to windward of the point she was strug- gling to weather, and toward which she was driving under a treble impetus — that of the wind acting on her sails and pressing her ahead at the rate of fully five knots, for the craft was kept a rap full ; that of the eddy or current ; and that of the rolling waters. No man spoke, for each person felt that the crisis was one in which silence w T as a sort of homage to the Deity. Some prayed privately, and all gazed on the low rocky point that it was indispensable to pass to avoid destruction. There was one favorable circumstance : the water was known to be deep quite close to the iron- bound coast, and it was seldom that any danger existed 200 AMERICAN LITERATURE. that it was not visible to the eye. This Roswell knew from Stimson’s accounts, as well as from those of other mari- ners, and he saw that the fact was of the last importance to him. Should he be able to weather the point ahead, that which terminated at the mouth of the passage that led within the Hermits, it was now certain it could be done only by going fearfully near the rocks. Roswell Gardiner took his station between the knight- heads, beckoning to Stimson to come near him. At the same time Hazard himself went to the helm. “ Do you remember this place ?” asked the young mas- ter of the old seaman. “ This is the spot, sir ; and if we can round the rocky point ahead I will take you to a safe anchorage. Our drift is awful, or we are in an eddy tide here, sir.” “ It is the eddy,” answered Roswell, calmly, “ though our drift is not trifling. This is getting frightfully near to that point.” “ Hold on, sir — it’s our only chance — hold on, and we may rub and go.” “ If we rub we are lost; that is certain enough. Should we get by this first point, there is another a short distance beyond it, which must certainly fetch us up, I fear. See ! it opens more as we draw ahead.” Stimson saw the new danger, and fully appreciated it. He did not speak, however; for, to own the truth, he now abandoned all hope, and, being a piously-inclined person, he was privately addressing himself to God. Every man on board was fully aware of the character of this new dan- ger, and all seemed to forget that of the nearest point of rock, toward which they were now wading with portentous speed. That point might be passed — there was a little hope there; but as to the point a quarter of a mile beyond, with the leeward set of the schooner the most ignorant hand on board saw how unlikely it was that they should get by it. An imposing silence prevailed in the schooner as she JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 201 came abreast of the first rock. It was about fifty fathoms under the lee bow, and, as to that spot, all depended on the distance outward that the dangers thrust themselves. This it was impossible to see amid the chaos of waters produced by the collision between the waves and the land. Roswell fastened his eyes on objects ahead to note the rate of his leeward set, and with a seaman’s quickness he noted the first change. “ She feels the under-tow, Stephen,” he said, in a voice so compressed as to seem to come out of the depths of his chest, “ and is breasted up to windward.” “What means that sudden luff, sir? Mr. Hazard must keep a good full or we shall have no chance.” Gardiner looked aft, and saw that the mate was bearing the helm well up, as if- he met with much resistance. The truth then flashed upon him, and he shouted out, “All’s well, boys! God be praised, we have caught the ebb-tide under our lee bow !” These few words explained the reason of the change. Instead of setting to leeward, the schooner was now meet- ing a powerful tide of some four or five knots, which hawsed her up to windward with irresistible force. As if conscious of the danger she was in, the tight little craft receded from the rocks as she shot ahead, and rounded the second point, which, a minute before, had appeared to be placed there purposely to destroy her. It was handsomely doubled at the safe distance of a hundred fathoms. Ros- well believed he might now beat his schooner off the land far enough to double the cape altogether, could he but keep her in that current. It doubtless expended itself, however, a short distance in the offing, as its waters dif- fused themselves on the breast of the ocean ; and it was this diffusion of the element that produced the eddy which had proved so nearly fatal. In ten minutes after striking the tide the schooner opened the passage fairly, and was kept away to enter it. 202 AMERICAN LITERATURE . Notwithstanding it blew so heavily, the rate of sailing, by the land, did not exceed five knots. This was owing to the great strength of the tide, which sometimes rises and falls thirty feet in high latitudes and narrow waters. Stimson now showed he was a man to be relied on. Conning the craft intelligently, he took her in behind the island on which the cape stands, luffed her up into a tiny cove, and made a cast of the lead. There were fifty fath- oms of water, with a bottom of mud. With the certainty that there was enough of the element to keep him clear of the ground at low water, and that his anchors would hold, Roswell made a flying moor, and veered out enough cable to render his vessel secure. . . . No navigator but a sealer would have dreamed of carrying his vessel into such a place, but it is a part of their calling to poke about in channels and passages where no one else has ever been. It was in this way that Stimson had learned to know where to find his present anchorage. The berth of the schooner was perfectly snug and entirely landlocked. The tremendous swell that was rolling in on the outside caused the waters to rise and fall a little within the pas- sage, but there was no strain upon the cables in conse- quence. Neither did the rapid tides affect the craft, which lay in an eddy that nearly kept her steady. The gale came howling over the Hermits, but was so much broken by the rocks as to do little more than whistle through the cordage and spars aloft. . . . Taking Stimson with him to carry a glass and armed with an old lance as a pike-pole to aid his efforts, Ros- well Gardiner now commenced the ascent of the pyramid already mentioned. It was rugged and offered a thousand obstacles, but none that vigor and resolution could not over- come. After a few minutes of violent exertion, and by help- ing each other in difficult places, both Roswell and Stimson succeeded in placing themselves on the summit of the ele- vation, which was an irregular peak. The height was JAMES FENIMORE COOPER . 203 considerable, and gave an extended view of the adjacent islands as well as of the gloomy and menacing ocean to the southward. The earth probably does not contain a more remarkable sentinel than this pyramid on which our hero had now taken his station. There it stood, actually the Ultima Thule of this vast continent, or, what was much the same, so closely united to it as to seem a part of our own moiety of the globe, looking out on the broad expanse of waters. The eye saw to the right the Pacific, in front was the Southern or Antarctic Ocean, and to the left was the great Atlantic. For several minutes both Roswell and Stephen sat mute, gazing on this grand spectacle. By turn- ing their faces north they beheld the highlands of Tierra del Fuego, of which many of the highest peaks were cov- ered with snow. The pyramid on which they were, how- ever, was no longer white with the congealed rain, but stood stern and imposing in its native brown. The out- lines of all the rocks and the shores of the different islands had an appearance of volcanic origin, though the rocks themselves told a somewhat different story. The last were principally of trap formation. Cape-pigeons, gulls, petrels, and albatross were wheeling about in the air, while the rollers that still came in on this noble sea-wall were really terrific. Distant thunder wants the hollow, bellowing sound that these waves made when brought in contact with the shores. Roswell fancied that it was like a groan of the mighty Pacific at finding its progress suddenly checked. The spray continued to fly, and much of the time the air below his elevated seat was filled with vapor. 204 AMERICAN LITERATURE . JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. [From The Culprit Fay.'] III. ’Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell ; The wood-tick has kept the minutes well ; He has counted them all with click and stroke Deep in the heart of the mountain-oak. And he has awakened the sentry elve Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree, To bid him ring the hour of twelve And call the fays to their revelry ; Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell (’Twas made of the white snail’s pearly shell) — “ Midnight comes, and all is well ; Hither, hither, wing your way ; ’Tis the dawn of the fairy-day.” IV. They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullein’s velvet screen ; Some on the backs of beetles fly From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, And rocked about in the evening breeze ; Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest — They had driven him out by elfin power — And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast, Had slumbered there till the charmed hour; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid; And some had opened the four-o’-clock And stol’n within its purple shade ; JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 205 And now they throng the moonlight glade Above, below, on every side, Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride. ^ % SjC XXV. He put his acorn helmet on — It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down ; The corselet-plate that guarded his breast Was once the wild bee’s golden vest; His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes, Was formed of the wings of butterflies; His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen, Studs of gold on a ground of green ; And the quivering lance which he brandished bright Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight. Swift he bestrode his firefly steed ; He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue ; He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed, And away like a glance of thought he flew To skim the heavens, and follow far The fiery trail of the rocket-star. xxvi. The moth-fly, as he shot in air, Crept under the leaf and hid her there ; The katydid forgot its lay, The prowling gnat fled fast away ; The fell mosquito checked his drone And folded his wings till the Fay was gone ; And the wily beetle dropped his head, And fell on the ground as if he were dead ; They crouched them close in the darksome shade, They quaked all o’er with awe and fear, 206 AMERICAN LITERATURE. For they had felt the blue-bent blade, And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear. Many a time on a summer’s night, When the sky was clear and the moon was bright, They had been roused from the haunted ground By the yelp and bay of the fairy-hound ; They had heard the tiny bugle horn, They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn And the nettle-shaft through air was borne, Feathered with down of the hum-bird’s wing. And now they deemed the courier ouphe Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground ; And they watched till they saw him mount the roof That canopies the world around ; Then glad they left their covert lair, And freaked about in the midnight air. FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake of New York, September, 1820. “The good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket” — Wordsworth. Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days, None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. Tears fell when thou wert dying From eyes unused to weep, WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. And long where thou art lying Will tears the cold turf steep. When hearts whose truth was proven, Like thine, are laid in earth, There should a wreath be woven To tell the world their worth. And I, who woke each morrow To clasp thy hand in mine, Who shared thy joy and sorrow, Whose weal and woe were thine, — It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow ; But I’ve in vain essayed it, And feel I cannot now. While memory bids me weep thee, Nor thoughts nor words are free, The grief is fixed too deeply That mourns a man like thee. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. Thanatopsis. To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language ; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away 208 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart, — Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature’s teachings, while from all around — Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — Comes a still voice : Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix for ever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, And, to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills, Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between ; The venerable woods ; rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 209 Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste, — Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, traverse Barca’s desert sands, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there; And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest. And what if thou withdraw Unheeded by the living, and no friend Take note of thv departure ? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men — The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years ; matron, and maid, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, — Shall one by one be gathered to thy side By those who, in their turn, shall follow them. So live that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, that moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night 14 210 AMERICAN LITERATURE . Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. To a Water-Fowl. Whither, ’midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way ? Vainly the fowler’s eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek’st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean-side ? There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — The desert and illimitable air, Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end ; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend Soon o’er thy sheltered nest. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 211 Thou’rt gone ; the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form, yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart : He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone Will lead my steps aright. The Prairies. These are the gardens of the desert, these The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, For which the speech of England has no name — The Prairies. I behold them for the first, And my heart swells, while the dilated sight Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo ! they stretch, In airy undulations, far away, As if the Ocean, in his gentlest swell, Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed And motionless for ever. Motionless ? No, they are all unchained again. The clouds Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath, The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye ; Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South ! Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers, And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high, Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not — ye have played Among the palms of Mexico and vines Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks That from the fountains of Sonora glide Into the calm Pacific — have ye fanned A nobler or a lovelier scene than this ? Man hath no power in all this glorious work : 212 AMERICAN LITERATE RE. The Hand that built the firmament hath heaved And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes With herbage, planted them with island groves, And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor For this magnificent temple of the sky — With flowers whose glory and whose multitude Rival the constellations ! The great heavens Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love — A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue, Than that which bends above our Eastern hills. As o’er the verdant waste I guide my steed, Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sides, The hollow beating of his footstep seems A sacrilegious sound. I think of those Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here — The dead of other days ? And did the dust Of these fair solitudes once stir with life And burn with passion ? Let the mighty mounds That overlook the rivers, or that rise In the dim forest crowded with old oaks, Answer. A race, that has long passed away, Built them : a disciplined and populous race Heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields Nourished their harvests, here their herds were fed, When haply by their stalls the bison lowed And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke. All day this desert murmured with their toils, Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked, and wooed In a forgotten language, and old tunes, From instruments of unremembered form, Gave the soft winds a voice. The red man came, WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 213 The roaming hunter-tribes, warlike and fierce, And the mound-builders vanished from the earth. The solitude of centuries untold Has settled were they dwelt. The prairie-wolf Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dug den Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone — All save the piles of earth that hold their bones, The platforms where they worshipped unknown gods, The barriers which they builded from the soil To keep the foe at bay, till o’er the walls The wild beleaguerers broke, and, one by one, The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres, And sat unscared and silent at their feast. Haply some solitary fugitive, Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense Of desolation and of fear became Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die. Man’s better nature triumphed then. Kind words Welcomed and soothed him; the rude conquerors Seated the captive with their chiefs ; he chose A bride among their maidens, and at length Seemed to forget — yet ne’er forgot — the wife Of his first love and her sweet little ones, Butchered, amid their shrieks, with all his race. Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise Races of living things, glorious in strength, And perish as the quickening breath of God Fills them or is withdrawn. The red man, too, Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long, And nearer to the Rocky Mountains sought A wilder hunting-ground. The beaver builds No longer by these streams, but far away, 214 AMERICAN LITERATURE, On waters whose blue surface ne’er gave back The white man’s face — among Missouri’s springs And pools whose issues swell the Oregon — He rears his little Venice. In these plains The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues Beyond remotest smoke of hunter’s camp Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake The earth with thundering steps ; yet here I meet His ancient footprints stamped beside the pool. Still, this great solitude is quick with life. Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds And birds that scarce have learned the fear of man, Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground, Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee, A more adventurous colonist than man, With whom he came across the Eastern deep, Fills the savannas with his murmurings, And hides his sweets, as in the golden age, Within the hollow oak. I listen long To his domestic hum, and think I hear The sound of that advancing multitude Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground Come up the laugh of children, the soft voice Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream, And I am in the wilderness alone. DANIEL WEBSTER . . 215 DANIEL WEBSTER. The Veterans of Bunker Hill. [From the oration at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument.] Venerable men : You have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder in the strife of your country. Behold how al- tered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads, the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon; you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and suc- cessful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the sum- moning of all that is manly to repeated resistance ; a thou- sand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death, — all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and chil- dren and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a feli- city of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country’s own means of distinction and defence. All is peace, and God has granted you this sight of your country’s hap- 216 AMERICAN LITERATURE . piness ere you slumber in the grave for ever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils, and he has allowed us, your sons and coun- trymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you. But, alas ! you are not all here. Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers,, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country’s independence established and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like " another morn, Risen on mid-noon,” and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. But, ah ! him, the first great martyr in this great cause ; him, the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart ; him, the head of our civil councils and the destined leader of our military bands ; whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit ; him, cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom ; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise ; pouring out his generous blood like water before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage ! How shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name? Our poor work may perish, but thine shall endure. This monument may moulder away ; the solid ground it rests upon may sink 217 DANIEL WEBSTER. down to a level with the sea ; but thy memory shall not fail. Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspira- tions shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit. South Carolina and Massachusetts. [From the Reply to Hayne . ] I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has pro- duced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride, of her great names. 1 claim them for my countrymen, one and all, the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions — Americans all, whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation they served and honored the country, and the whole country ; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears, — does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his patriot- ism or sympathy for his sufferings than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts instead of South Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom ? No, sir ; increased gratification and delight, rather. I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate or elsewhere to sneer at public merit because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood ; when I refuse, for any such cause or for any cause, the homage due to American 218 AMERICAN LITERATURE. talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or if I see an uncommon endowment of heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue, in any son of the South, and if, moved by local prejudices or gan- grened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, — may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; let me indulge in refreshing remembrances of the past ; let me remind you that, in early times, no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return ! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration of Wash- ington and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation and distrust, are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which the same great arm never scattered. Mr. President, I shall enter upon no encomium of Mas- sachusetts ; she needs none. There she is ! Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history ; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill, and there they will remain for ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia, and there they will lie for ever. And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the IJANIEL WEBSTER. 219 end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends w r ho gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the profound- est monuments of its own glory and on the very spot of its origin. The Union. [From the peroration of the Reply to Hayne.~\ I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of pre- serving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe coun- sellor in the affairs of this Government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts w r e have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once- glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belliger- ent; on a land rent with civil feuds or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their 220 AMERICAN LITERATURE. original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable in- terrogatory as, “ What is all this worth ?” nor those other words of delusion and folly, “Liberty first, and Union afterward •” but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, and as they float over the sea and over the land and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart — Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable ! EDWARD EVERETT. The Battle of Lexington. [From a Fourth-of-July Oration at Dorchester, Mass., 1855.] On the 10th of April the all-important blow was struck — the blow which severed the fated chain whose every link was bolted by an act of Parliament, whose every rivet was closed up by an order in council — which bound to the wake of Europe the brave bark of our youthful fortune, destined henceforth and for ever to ride the waves alone — the blow which severed that fated chain was struck. The blow was struck which will be felt in its consequences to ourselves and the family of nations till the seventh seal is broken from the apocalyptic volume of the history of empires. The consummation of four centuries was completed. The lifelong hopes and heartsick visions of Columbus — poorly fulfilled in the subjugation of the plumed tribes of a few tropical islands and the partial survey of the continent, cruelly mocked by the fetters placed upon his noble limbs by his own menial, and which he carried with him into his grave, — were at length more than fulfilled when the New World of his discovery put on the sov- EDWARD EVERETT, 221 ereign robes of her separate national existence, and joined, for peace and for war, the great Panathenaic procession of the nations. The wrongs of generations were redressed. The cup of humiliation, drained to the dregs by the old Puritan confessors and Nonconformist victims of oppression, — loathsome prisons, blasted for- tunes, lips forbidden to open in prayer, earth and water denied in their pleasant native land, the separations and sorrows of exile, the sounding perils of the ocean; the scented hedgerows and vocal thickets of the u old coun- tree ” exchanged for a pathless wilderness ringing with the war-whoop and gleaming with the scalping-knife; the sec- ular insolence of colonial rule checked by no periodical recurrence to the public will; governors appointed on the other side of the globe that knew not Joseph ; the patron- izing disdain of undelegated power; the legal contumely of foreign law, wanting the first element of obligation, the consent of the governed expressed by his authorized rep- resentative ; and at length the last unutterable and burn- ing affront and shame, a mercenary soldiery encamped upon the fair eminences of our cities, ships of war with springs on their cables moored in front of our crowded quays, artillery planted open-mouthed in our principal streets, at the doors of our houses of assembly, their morning and evening salvos proclaiming to the rising and the setting sun that we are the subjects and they the lords, — all these hideous phantoms of the long colo- nial night swept off by the first sharp volley on Lex- ington Green. 222 AMERICAN LITERATURE. RUFUS CHOATE. Webster as a Statesman. [From the Eulogy on Daniel Webster.'] Consider the work he did in that life of forty years — the range of subjects investigated and discussed, com- posing the whole theory and practice of our organic and administrative politics, foreign and domestic; the vast body of instructive thought he produced and put in possession of the country; how much he achieved in Congress, as well as at the bar, to fix the true inter- pretation, as well as to impress the transcendent value, of the Constitution itself — as much altogether as any jurist or statesman since its adoption ; how much to establish in the general mind the great doctrine that the Government of the United States is a government proper, established by the people of the States, not a compact between sov- ereign communities — that within its limits it is supreme, and that whether it is within its limits or not, in any given exertion of itself, is to be determined by the Supreme Court of the United States — the ultimate arbiter in the last resort — from which there is no appeal but to revolution ; how much he did in the course of the discussions which grew out of the proposed mission to Panama, and, at a later day, out of the removal of the deposits, to place the exec- utive department of the Government on its true basis and under its true limitations ; to secure to that department all its just powers on the one hand, and on the other hand to vindicate to the legislative department, and especially to the Senate, all that belong to them ; to arrest the tend- encies which he thought at one time threatened to sub- stitute the government of a single will, of a single person of great force of character and boundless popularity, and of a numerical majority of the people, told by the head, RUFUS CHOATE. 223 without intermediate institutions of any kind, judicial or senatorial, in place of the elaborate system of checks and balances by which the Constitution aimed at a govern- ment of laws and not of men ; how much, attracting less popular attention, but scarcely less important, to complete the great work which experience had shown to be left un- finished by the Judiciary Act of 1789 by providing for the punishment of all crimes against the United States; how much for securing a safe currency and a true financial sys- tem, not only by the promulgation of sound opinions, but by good specific measures adopted or bad ones defeated; how much to develop the vast material resources of the country, and to push forward the planting of the West — not troubled by any fear of exhausting old States — by a liberal policy of public lands ; by vindicating the consti- tutional power of Congress to make or aid in making large classes of internal improvements, and by acting on that doctrine uniformly from 1813, whenever a road was to be built or a rapid suppressed or a canal to be opened or a breakwater or a lighthouse set up above or below the flow of the tide, if so far beyond the ability of a single State, or of so wide utility to commerce and labor, as to rise to the rank of a work general in its influences — another tie of union because another proof of the beneficence of union; how much to protect the vast mechanical and manufacturing interests of the country — a value of many hundreds of millions, after having been lured into exist- ence against his counsels, against his science of political economy, by a policy of artificial encouragement — from being sacrificed, and the pursuits and plans of large regions and communities broken up, and the acquired skill of the country squandered by a sudden and capri- cious withdrawal of the promise of the Government ; how much for the right performance of the most delicate and difficult of all tasks, the ordering of the foreign affairs of a nation, free, sensitive, self-conscious, recognizing, it is true, 224 AMERICAN LITERATURE. public law and a morality of the State, yet aspiring to power, eminence, and command, its whole frame filled full and all on fire with American feeling, sympathetic with liberty everywhere; how much for the right order- ing of the foreign affairs of such a State, aiming, in all his policy, from his speech on the Greek question in 1823 to his letters to M. Hulsemann in 1850, to occupy the high, plain, yet dizzy ground which separates influence from intervention, to avow and promulgate warm good-will to humanity wherever striving to be free, to inquire authen- tically into the history of its struggles, to take official and avowed pains to ascertain the moment when its success may be recognized, consistently, ever, with the great code that keeps the peace of the world, abstaining from every- thing that shall give any nation a right under the law of nations to utter one word of complaint, still less to retal- iate by war, — the sympathy, but also the neutrality of Washington; how much to compose with honor a con- currence of difficulties with the first power in the world, which anjdhing less than the highest degree of discretion, firmness, ability, and means of commanding respect and confidence at home and abroad would inevitably have conducted to the last calamity — a disputed boundary- line of many hundred miles from the St. Croix to the Rocky Mountains, which divided an exasperated and impracticable border population, enlisted the pride and affected the interests and controlled the politics of par- ticular States, as well as pressed on the peace and honor of the nation, which the most popular administrations of the era of the quietest and best public feelings, the times of Monroe and of Jackson, could not adjust; which had grown so complicated with other topics of excitement that one false step, right or left, would have been a step down a precipice — this line settled for ever, the claim of Eng- land to search our ships for the suppression of the slave- trade silenced for ever, and a new engagement entered into RUFUS CHOATE. 225 by treaty binding the national faith to contribute a spe- cific naval force for putting an end to the great crime of man — the long practice of England to enter an American ship and impress from its crew terminated for ever; the deck henceforth guarded sacredly and completely by the flag; how much by profound discernment, by eloquent speech, by devoted life, to strengthen the ties of Union and breathe the fire and strong spirit of nationality through all our numbers; how much, most of all, last of all, after the war with Mexico, needless if his coun- sels had governed, had ended in so vast an acquisition of territory, in presenting to the two great antagonistic sec- tions of our country so vast an era to enter on, so imperial a prize to contend for, and the accursed fraternal strife had begun ; how much, then, when rising to the measure of a true and difficult and rare greatness, remembering that he had a country to save as well as a local constituency to gratify, laying all the wealth, all the hopes, of an illustri- ous life on the altar of a hazardous patriotism, he sought and won the more exceeding glory which now attends — which in the next age shall more conspicuously attend — his name who composes an agitated and saves a sinking land. Recall this series of conduct and influences, study them carefullv in their facts and results — the reading of years — and you attain to a true appreciation of this aspect of his greatness — his public character and life. 16 22(3 AMERICAN LITERATURE . WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. Original American Literature. [From Remarks on National Literature .] We next observe — and we think the observation import- ant — that the facility with which we receive the literature of foreign countries, instead of being a reason for neglect- ing our own, is a strong motive for its cultivation. We mean not to be paradoxical, but we believe that it would be better to admit no books from abroad than to make them substitutes for our own intellectual activity. The more we receive from other countries, the greater the need of an original literature. A people into whose minds the thoughts of foreigners are poured perpetually needs an energy within itself to resist, to modify, this mighty influ- ence, and without it will inevitably sink under the worst bondage — will become intellectually tame and enslaved. We have certainly no desire to complete our restrictive system by adding to it a literary non-intercourse law. We rejoice in the increasing intellectual connection be- tween this country and the Old World. But sooner would we rupture it than see our country sitting pas- sively at the feet of foreign teachers. It were better to have no literature than form ourselves unresistingly on a foreign one. The true sovereigns of a country are those who determine its mind, its mode of thinking, its tastes, its principles ; and we cannot consent to lodge this sove- reignty in the hands of strangers. A country, like an individual, has dignity and power only in proportion as it is self-formed. There is a great stir to secure to our- selves the manufacturing of our own clothing. We say, Let others spin and weave for us, but let them not think for us. A people whose government and laws are noth- ing but the embodying of public opinion should jealously RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 227 guard this opinion against foreign dictation. We need a literature to counteract, and to use wisely, the literature which we import. We need an inward power proportion- ate to that which is exerted on us as the means of self- subsistence. It is particularly true of a people whose institutions demand for their support a free and bold spirit that they should be able to subject to a manly and independent criticism whatever comes from abroad. These views seem to us to deserve serious attention. We are more and more a reading people. Books are already among the most powerful influences here. The question is, Shall Europe, through these, fashion us after its pleas- ure ? Shall America be only an echo of what is thought and written under the aristocracies beyond the ocean? Another view of the subject is this : A foreign literature will always, in a measure, be foreign. It has sprung from the soul of another people, which, however like, is still not our own soul. Every people has much in its own charac- ter and feelings which can only be embodied by its own writers, and which, when transfused through literature, makes it touching and true, like the voice of our earliest friend. RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Nature. To go into solitude a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and vulgar things. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in 228 AMERICAN LITERATURE. the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are ! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown ! But every night come out these preachers of beauty and light the universe with their admonishing smile. The stars awaken a certain reverence, because, though always present, they are always inaccessible ; but all nat- ural objects make kindred impression when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean ap- pearance. Neither does the wisest man extort all her secrets and lose his curiosity by finding out all her per- fection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains reflected all the wis- dom of his best hour as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood. When we speak of Nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold Nature objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of tim- ber of the wood-cutter from the tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubi- tably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts — that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men’s farms, yet to this their land-deeds give them no title. To speak truly, few adult persons can see Nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very super- ficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of Nature is he whose inward and outward senses RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 229 are still truly adjusted to each other — who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of Nature a wild delight runs through the man in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, He is my creature, and, maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the sum- mer alone, but every hour and season, yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common in snow-puddles at twilight under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good-fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. Al- most I fear to think how glad I am. In the woods, too, a man casts off his years as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of his life is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life — no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes) — which Na- ture cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me ; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign or ac- cidental. To be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the 230 AMERICAN LITERATURE. distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beau- tiful as his own nature. The greatest delight which the fields and woods minis- ter is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right. Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight does not reside in Nature, but in man or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed per- fume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs is over- spread with melancholy to-day. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population. Beauty. A nobler want of man is served by Nature — namely, the love of Beauty. The ancient Greeks called the world beauty. Such is the constitution of all things, or such the plastic power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us delight in and for themselves — a pleasure arising from outline, color, motion, and grouping. This seems partly owing to the eye itself. The eye is the best of artists. By the mutual RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 231 action of its structure and of the laws of light perspective is produced, which integrates every mass of objects, of what character soever, into a well-colored and shaded globe, so that where the particular objects are mean and unaffecting the landscape which they compose is round and symmetrical. And as the eye is the best composer, so light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful. And the stimulus it affords to the sense, and a sort of infinitude which it hath, like space and time, make all matter gay. Even the corpse hath its own beauty. But besides this general grace diffused over Nature, almost all the individual forms are agreeable to the eye, as is proved by our endless imita- tions of some of them, as the acorn, the grape, the pine- cone, the wheat-ear, the egg, the wings and forms of most birds, the lion’s claw, the serpent, the butterfly, sea-shells, flames, clouds, buds, leaves, and the forms of many trees, as the palm. For better consideration we may distribute the aspects of beauty in a threefold manner : 1. First, the simple perception of natural forms is a de- light. The influence of the forms and actions in Nature is so needful to many that, in its lowest functions, it seems to lie on the confines of commodity and beauty. To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, Nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney, comes out of the din and craft of the street and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm he finds himself. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired so long as we can see far enough. But in other hours Nature satisfies the soul purely by its loveliness, and without any mixture of corporeal bene- fit. I have seen the spectacle of morning from the hill- top over against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long slender 232 AMERICAN LITERATURE. bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations: the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements ! Give health and a day, and 1 will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria ; the sunset and moonrise my Paphos and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding ; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams. Not less excellent, except for our less susceptibility in the afternoon, was the charm last evening of a January sunset. The western clouds divided and subdivided themselves into pink flakes modulated with tints of unspeakable soft- ness, and the air had so much life and sweetness that it w^as a pain to come within doors. What was it that Nature would say? Was there no meaning in the live repose of the valley behind the mill, and which Homer or Shakespeare could not re-form for me in words? The leafless trees become spires of flame in the sunset, with the blue east for their background, and the stars of the dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and stubble rimed with frost contribute something to the mute music. The inhabitants of cities suppose that the country land- scape is pleasant only half the year. I please myself with observing the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer. To the attentive eye each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 233 and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath. The state of the crop in the surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week to week. The succes- sion of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, which make the silent clock by which time tells the summer hour, will make even the divisions of the day sensible to a keen observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants punctual to their time, follow each other, and the year lias room for all. By water-courses the variety is greater. In July the blue pontederia or pickerel-weed blooms in large beds in the shallow part of our pleasant river, and swarms with yellow butterflies in continual motion. Art cannot rival this pomp of purple and gold. Indeed, the river is a per- petual gala, and boasts each month a new ornament. But this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty is the least part. The shows of day — the dewy morning, the rainbow mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like — if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely and mock us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon, and ? tis mere tinsel ; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who ever could clutch it? Go forth to find it and it is gone; ’tis only a mirage as you look from the windows of diligence. 2. The presence of a higher — namely, of the spiritual — element is essential to its perfection. The high and divine beauty which can be loved without effeminacy is that which is found in combination with the human will, and never separate. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it. Every rational creature has all 234 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Nature for his dowry and estate. It is his if he will. He may divest himself of it ; lie may creep into a corner and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his thought and will he takes up the world into himself. “ All those things for which men plough, build, or sail, obey virtue,” said an ancient historian. “ The winds and waves,” said Gibbon, “ are always on the side of the ablest navigators.” So are the sun and moon and all the stars of heaven. When a noble act is done, per- chance in a scene of great natural beauty ; when Leonidas and his three hundred martyrs consume one day in dying, and the sun and moon come each and look at them once in the steep defile of Thermopylae ; when Arnold Winck- elried in the high Alps, under the shadow of the ava- lanche, gathers in his side a sheaf of Austrian spears to break the line for his comrades, — are not these heroes entitled to add the beauty of the scene to the beauty of the deed? When the bark of Columbus nears the shore of America, before it the beach lined with savages fleeing out of all their huts of cane, the sea behind, and the purple mountains of the Indian Archipelago around, can we separate the man from the living picture ? Does not the New World clothe his form with her palm-groves and savannas as fit drapery? Ever does natural beauty steal in like air and envelop great actions. When Sir Henry Vane was dragged up the Tower Hill sitting on a sled to suffer death as the champion of the English laws, one of the multitude cried out to him, “ You never sate on so glorious a seat.” Charles II., to intimidate the citizens of London, caused the patriot Lord Russell to be drawn in an open coach through the principal streets of the city on his way to the scaffold. “ But,” to use the simple narrative of his biographer, “ the multitude imag- ined they saw liberty and virtue sitting by his side.” In private places, among sordid objects, an act of heroism RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 235 seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the sun as its candle. Nature stretcheth out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal great- ness. Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. Hymn. [Sung at the completion of the Concord Monument, April 19, 1836.] By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept ; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone, That memory may their deed redeem When, like our sires, our sons are gone. Spirit that made those heroes dare To die or leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee. Rhodora. In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh rhodora in the woods, 236 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay ; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array. Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being ; Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose ! I never thought to ask, I never knew ; But in my simple ignorance suppose The selfsame Power that brought me there, brought you. MARGARET FULLER. The True Criticism. [From Papers on Literature and Art .] There are two ways of considering poems or the prod- ucts of literature in general. We may tolerate only what is excellent, and demand that whatever is consigned to print for the benefit of the human race should exhibit fruits perfect in shape, color, and flavor, enclosing kernels of permanent value. Those who demand this will be content only with the Iliads and Odysseys of the mind’s endeavor. They can feed nowhere but at rich men’s tables ; in the wildest recess of Nature roots and berries will not content them. They say, “ If you can thus satiate your appetite, it is degrading; we, the highly refined in taste and the tissue of the mind, can no- MARGARET FULLER . 237 where be appeased unless by golden apples served up on silver dishes.” But, on the other hand, literature may be regarded as the great mutual system of interpretation between all kinds and classes of men. It is an epistolary corre- spondence between brethren of one family subject to many and wide separations and anxious to remain in spiritual presence one of another. These letters may be written by the prisoner in soot and water, illustrated by rude sketches in charcoal ; by Nature’s nobleman, free to use his inheritance, in letters of gold, with the fair margin filled with exquisite miniatures : to the true man each will have value— first, in proportion to the degree of its revela- tion as to the life of the human soul ; second , in propor- tion to the perfection of form in which that revelation is expressed. In like manner are there two modes of criticism — one which tries, by the highest standard of literary perfection the critic is capable of conceiving, each work which comes in his way ; rejecting all that it is possible to reject, and reserving for toleration only what is capable of standing the severest test. It crushes to earth without mercy all the humble buds of phantasy, all the plants that, though green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects or have suf- fered by drouth. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe that the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, graceful plant. There is another mode which enters into the natural history of everything that breathes and lives, which be- lieves no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive, and object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in each natural form if its law and purpose be understood. It does not consider a litera- ture merely as the garden of the nation, but as the growih of the entire region, with all its variety of mountain, forest, pasture, and tillage lands. Those who observe in this spirit 238 AMERICAN LITERATURE. will often experience, from some humble offering to the muses, the delight felt by the naturalist in the grasses and lichens of some otherwise barren spot. These are the earl- iest and humblest efforts of Nature, but to a discerning eye they indicate the entire range of her energies. These two schools have each their dangers. The first tends to hypercriticism and pedantry, to a cold restriction on the unstudied action of a large and flowing life. In demanding that the stream should always flow transpa- rent over golden sands, it tends to repress its careless maj- esty, its vigor, and its fertilizing power. The other shares the usual perils of the genial and affec- tionate : it tends to indiscriminate indulgence and a level- ling of the beautiful with what is merely tolerable. For, indeed, the vines need judicious pruning if they are to bring us the ruby wine. In the golden age to which we are ever looking forward these two tendencies will be harmonized. The highest sense of fulfilled excellence will be found to consist with the largest appreciation of every sign of life. The eye of man is fitted to range all around, no less than to be lifted on high. HENRY DAVID THOREAU. Wild Nature. [From Walden.] Our village-life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness — to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe ; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest HENRY DAVID T HO REAL 7 . 239 and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable — that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsur- veyed, and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic fea- tures — the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture feeding on the car- rion which disgusts and disheartens us, and deriving health and strength from the repast. There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to my house, which com- pelled me sometimes to go out of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy ; but the assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence like pulp — tadpoles which herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road ; and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood ! With the lia- bility to accident we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped. Early in May the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, just putting out amidst the pine woods around the pond, imparted a brightness like sunshine to the land- scape, especially in cloudy days, as if the sun were break- 240 AMERICAN LITERATURE. ing through mists and shining faintly on the hillsides here and there. On the third or fourth of May I saw a loon in the pond, and during the first week of the month I heard the whippoorwill, the brown thrasher, the veery, the wood- pewee, the chewink, and other birds. I heard the wood- thrush long before. The phoebe had already come once more, and looked in at my door and window to see if my house was cavern-like enough for her, sustaining herself on humming wings with clenched talons, as if she held by the air while she surveyed the premises. The sulphur-like pollen of the pitch-pine soon covered the pond and the stones and rotten wood along the shore, so that you could have collected a barrelful. This is the “ sulphur showers ” we hear of. Even in Calidas 5 drama of Sacontala we read of “rills dyed yellow with the golden dust of the lotus.” And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one rambles into higher and higher grass. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. David Swan. [From Twice-Told Tales .] We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life and our final destiny. There are innumerable other events — if such they may be called — which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results, or even betraying their near approach, by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exul- tation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan. We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of twenty, on the highroad from his native place NATHANIEL HA }V THORNE. 241 to the city of Boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter. Be it enough to say that he was a native of New Hampshire, born of respectable parents, and had received an ordinary school education, with a classic finish by a year at Gil- manton Academy. After journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer’s day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade and await the coming up of the stage- coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon ap- peared a little tuft of maples with a delightful recess in the midst, and such a fresh, bubbling spring that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirsty lips, and then Hung himself along the brink, pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him ; the dust did not yet rise from the road after the heavy rain of yesterday ; and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a bed of down. The spring murmured drows- ily beside him ; the branches waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead ; and a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depths, fell upon David Swan. But we are to relate events which he did not dream of. While he lay sound asleep in the shade other people were wide awake, and passed to and fro, afoot, on horse- back, and in all sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road by his bed-chamber. Some looked neither to the right hand nor the left, and knew not that he was there ; some merely glanced that way without admitting the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly he slept; and several, whose hearts were brimming full of scorn, ejected their venomous superfluity on David Swan. A middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a little way into the recess and vowed that the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. A temper- 16 242 AMERICAN LITERATURE . ance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David into the texture of his evening’s discourse as an awful instance of dead-drunkenness by the roadside. But censure, praise, merriment, scorn, and indifference were all one, or rather all nothing, to David Swan. He had slept only a few moments when a brown car- riage, drawn by a handsome pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to a standstill nearly in front of David’s resting-place. A linchpin had fallen out and per- mitted one of the wheels to slide off. The damage was slight, and occasioned merely a momentaiy alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife who were returning to Bos- ton in the carriage. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple trees, and there espied the bubbling fountain, and David Swan asleep beside it. Im- pressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout would allow, and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silk gown lest David should start up all of a sudden. “ How soundly he sleeps !” whispered the old gentleman. “ From what a depth he draws that easy breath ! Such sleep as that, brought on without an opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income, for it would sup- pose health and an untroubled mind.” “ And youth besides,” said the lady. “ Healthy and quiet age does not sleep thus. Our slumber is no more like this than our wakefulness.” The longer they looked the more did this elderly couple feel interested in the unknown youth, to whom the way- side and a maple shade were as a secret chamber with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside so as to intercept it ; and, having done this little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother to him. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 243 “ Providence seems to have laid him here,” whispered she to her husband, “ and to have brought us hither to find him after our disappointment in our cousin’s son. Me- thinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry. Shall we wake him ?” “ To what purpose ?” said the merchant, hesitating. “ We know nothing of the youth’s character.” “ That open countenance !” replied his wife, in the same hushed voice, yet earnestly, “ this innocent sleep !” While these whispers were passing the sleeper’s heart did not throb, nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token of interest ; yet Fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burden of gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir to his wealth except a distant relative, with whose con- duct he was dissatisfied. In such cases people sometimes do stranger things than to act the magician and awaken a young man to splendor who fell asleep in poverty. “ Shall we not waken him ?” repeated the lady, per- suasively. “ The coach is ready, sir,” said the servant, behind. The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away, mutually wondering that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous. The merchant threw himself back in the carriage, and occupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business. Meanwhile, David Swan enjoyed his nap. The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two when a pretty young girl came along with a tripping pace, which showed precisely how her little heart was dancing in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merry kind of motion that caused — is there any harm in saying it? — her garter to slip its knot. Conscious that the silken girth — if silk it were — was relaxing its hold, she turned aside into the shelter of the maple trees, and there found a young man asleep by the spring. Blushing as red as any rose that 244 AMERICAN LITERATURE. she should have intruded into a gentleman's bed-chamber, and for such a purpose too, she was about to make her escape on tiptoe. But there was peril near the sleeper. A monster of a bee had been wandering overhead — buzz, buzz, buzz — now among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As free- hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly, and drove him from beneath the maple shade. How sweet a picture ! This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath and a deeper blush she stole a glance at the youthful stranger, for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air. “ He is handsome !” thought she, and blushed redder yet. How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him that, shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder and allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms? Why, at least, did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face? She was come, the maid whose soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had been severed from his own, and whom, in all his vague but passionate desires, he yearned to meet. Her only could he love with a perfect love; him only could she receive into the depths of her heart; and now her image was faintly blushing in the fountain by his side : should it pass away its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life again. “ How sound he sleeps !” murmured the girl. She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came. Now this girl’s father was a thriving country merchant in the neighborhood, and happened at that identical time to be looking out for just such a young man as David Swan. Had David formed a wayside acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the father’s clerk, and all else in natural succession. So here, again, had NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 245 good fortune — the best of fortunes — stolen so near that her garments brushed against him ; and he knew nothing of the matter. The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned aside beneath the maple shade. Both had dark faces, set off by cloth caps, which were drawn down aslant over their brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain smartness. These were a couple of rascals, who got their living by whatever the devil sent them, and now, in the interim of other business, had staked the joint profits of their next piece of villany on a game of cards which was to have been decided here under the trees. But finding David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his fellow, “ Hist ! Do you see that bundle under his head ?” The other villain nodded, winked, and leered. “ I’ll bet you a horn of brandy,” said the first, “ that the chap has either a pocket-book or a snug little hoard of small change stowed away amongst his shirts. And if not there, we shall find it in his pantaloons pocket.” “ But what if he wakes ?” said the other. His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of a dirk, and nodded. “ So be it,” muttered the second villain. They approached the unconscious David, and while one pointed the dagger toward his heart the other began to search the bundle beneath his head. Their two faces, grim, wrinkled, and ghastly with guilt and fear, bent over their victim, looking horrible enough to be mis- taken for fiends should he suddenly awake. Nay, had the villains glanced aside into the spring, even they would hardly have known themselves as reflected there. But David Swan had never worn a more tranquil aspect, even when asleep on his mother’s breast. “ I must take away the bundle,” whispered one. “ If he stirs I’ll strike,” muttered the other. 246 AMERICAN LITERATURE. But at this moment a dog, scenting along the ground, came in beneath the maple trees, and gazed alternately at each of these wicked men and then at the quiet sleeper. He then lapped out of the fountain. u Pshaw !” said one villain. “ We can do nothing now. The dog’s master must be close behind.” “ Let’s take a drink and be off,” said the other. The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom and drew forth a pocket pistol, but not of that kind which kills by a single discharge. It was a flask of liquor, with a block-tin tumbler screwed upon the mouth. Each drank a comfortable dram, and left the spot with so many jests and such laughter at their unaccomplished wickedness that they might be said to have gone on their way rejoicing. In a few hours they had forgotten the whole affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel had written down the crime of murder against their souls in letters as durable as eternity. As for Davin Swan, he still slept quietly, neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung over him nor of the glow of renewed life when that shadow was withdrawn. He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour’s repose had snatched from his elastic frame the weariness with which many hours of toil had burdened it. Now he stirred ; now moved his lips, without a sound ; now talked, in an inward tone, to the noonday spectres of his dream. But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder along the road, until it dashed through the dispersing mist of David’s slumber; and there was the stage-coach. He started up wflth all his ideas about him. “ Halloo, driver! Take a passenger?” shouted he. “ Room on top,” answered the driver. Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily toward Boston, without so much as a parting glance at that foun- tain of dream-like vicissitude. He knew not that a phan- tom of Wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 247 nor that one of Love had sighed softly to their murmur nor that one of Death had threatened to crimson them with his blood, — all in the brief hour since he lay down to sleep. Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy foot- steps of the strange things that almost happen. Does it not argue a superintending Providence that, while viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves con- tinually athwart our path, there should still be regular- ity enough in mortal life to render foresight even par- tially available? The Old Manse. [From Mosses from an Old Manse .] There was in the rear of the house the most delightful little nook of a study that ever offered its snug seclusion to a scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and the Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When I. first saw the room its walls w T ere blackened with the smoke of unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad angels, or, at least, like men who had wrestled so continually and so sternly with the devil that somewhat of his sooty fierce- ness had been imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now : a cheerful coat of paint and golden- tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small apartment, while the shadow of a willow tree that swept against the over- hanging eaves attempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael’s Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, 248 AMERICAN LITERATURE . and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few and by no means choice, for they were chiefly suclu waifs as chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed. The study had three windows, set with little old-fash- ioned panes of glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the western side looked, or rather peeped, between the willow-branches down into the orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third, facing northward, commanded a broader view of the river at a spot where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of history. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between two nations ; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side of the river, and the glittering line of the British on the hither bank; he awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of the musketry. It came, and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle-smoke around this quiet house. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. Proem. I love the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser’s golden days, Arcadian Sidney’s silvery phrase, Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. Yet vainly in ray quiet hours To breathe their marvellous notes I try ; I feel them as the leaves and flowers In silence feel the dewy showers, And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky. JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER . 249 The rigor of a frozen clime, The harshness of an untaught ear, The jarring words of one whose rhyme Beat often Labor’s hurried time Or Duty’s rugged march through storm and strife, are here. Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, No rounded art the lack supplies; Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, Or softer shades of Nature’s face, I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. Nor mine the seer-like power to show The secrets of the heart and mind ; To drop the plummet-line below Our common world of joy and woe, A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. Yet here at least an earnest sense Of human right and weal is shown ; A hate of tyranny intense, And hearty in its vehemence, As if my brother’s pain and sorrow were my own. O Freedom ! if to me belong Nor mighty Milton’s gift divine, Nor Marvell’s wit and graceful song, Still, with a love as deep and strong As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine ! To William Lloyd Garrison. Champion of those who groan beneath Oppression’s iron hand ! In view of penury, hate, and death, I see thee fearless stand, 250 AMERICAN LITERATURE . Still bearing up thy lofty brow In the steadfast strength of truth, In manhood sealing well the vow And promise of thy youth. Go on ! for thou hast chosen well — On, in the strength of God ! Long as one human heart shall swell Beneath the tyrant’s rod. Speak in a slumbering nation’s ear As thou hast ever spoken, Until the dead in sin shall hear — The fetter’s link be broken ! I love thee with a brother’s love, I feel my pulses thrill To mark thy spirit soar above The cloud of human ill. My heart hath leaped to answer thine And echo back thy words, As leaps the warrior’s at the shine And flash of kindred swords. They tell me thou art rash and vain — A searcher after fame — That thou art striving but to gain A long-enduring name — That thou hast nerved the Afric’s hand, And steel’d the Afric’s heart, To shake aloft his vengeful brand And rend his chain apart. Have I not known thee well, and read Thy mighty purpose long, And watch’d the trials which have made Thy human spirit strong ? HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 251 And shall the slanderer’s demon breath Avail with one like me, To dim the sunshine of my faith And earnest trust in thee ? Go on ! the dagger’s point may glare Amid thy pathway’s gloom — The fate which sternly threatens there Is glorious martyrdom ! Then onward with a martyr’s zeal, Pass on to thy reward — The hour when man shall only kneel Before his Father, God. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Hymn to the Night. [From Voices of the Night.] I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls ; I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls. I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o’er me from above — The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love. I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, The manifold, soft chimes, That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, Like some old poet’s rhymes. 252 AMERICAN LITERATURE . From the cool cisterns of the midnight air My spirit drank repose ; The fountain of perpetual peace Hows there- — From those deep cisterns flows. 0 holy Night ! from thee I learn to bear What man has borne before ; Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, And they complain no more. Peace ! peace ! Orestes-like, I breathe this prayer Descend with broad-winged flight, The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, The best-beloved Night! The Beleaguered City. I have read, in some old, marvellous tale, Some legend strange and vague, That a midnight host of spectres pale Beleaguered the walls of Prague. Beside the Moldau’s rushing stream, With the wan moon overhead, There stood, as in an awful dream, The army of the dead. White as a sea-fog, landward bound, The spectral camp was seen, And with a sorrowful, deep sound The river flowed between. No other voice nor sound was there, No drum nor sentry’s pace ; The mist-like banners clasped the air As clouds with clouds embrace. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW . But when the old cathedral bell Proclaimed the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell On the alarmed air. Down the broad valley fast and far The troubled army fled ; Up rose the glorious morning star — The ghastly host was dead. I have read, in the marvellous heart of man, That strange and mystic scroll, That an army of phantoms vast and wan Beleaguer the human soul. Encamped beside Life’s rushing stream In Fancy’s misty light, Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam Portentous through the night. Upon its midnight battle-ground The spectral camp is seen, And with a sorrowful, deep sound Flows the River of Life between. No other voice nor sound is there In the army of the grave : No other challenge breaks the air, But the rushing of life’s wave. And when the solemn and deep church-bell Entreats the soul to pray, The midnight phantoms feel the spell, The shadows sweep away. 254 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Down the broad Vale of Tears afar The spectral camp is fled ; Faith shineth as a morning star. Our ghastly fears are dead. The Arsenal at Springfield. This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms ; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah ! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the Death- Angel touches those swift keys 1 What loud lament and dismal miserere Will mingle with their awful symphonies ! I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, The cries of agony, the endless groan, Which, through the ages that have gone before us, In long reverberations reach our own. On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman’s song, And loud, amid the universal clamor, O’er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong. I hear the Florentine, who from his palace Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din, And Aztec priests upon their teocallis Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent’s skin ; The tumult of each sacked and burning village ; The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns ; The soldiers’ revels in the midst of pillage ; The wail of famine in beleaguered towns ; HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 255 The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, The rattling musketry, the clashing blade ; And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, The diapason of the cannonade. Is it, 0 man, with such discordant noises, With such accursed instruments as these, Thou drownest Nature’s sweet and kindly voices, And jarrest the celestial harmonies? Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts. The warrior’s name would be a name abhorred, And every nation that should lift again Its hand against a brother, on its forehead Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain. Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease; And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say, “ Peace !” Peace ! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War’s great organ shakes the skies ! But, beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise. The Skeleton in Armor. “ Speak! speak! thou fearful guest ! Who with thy hollow breast Still in rude armor drest Comest to daunt me ! 256 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Wrapt not in Eastern balms, But with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms, Why dost thou haunt me ?” Then from those cavernous eyes Pale flashes seemed to rise, As when the Northern skies Gleam in December ; And like the water’s flow Under December’s snow, Came a dull voice of woe From the heart’s chamber : “ I was a Viking old ! My deeds, though manifold, No Skald in song has told, No saga taught thee ! Take heed, that in thy verse Thou dost the tale rehearse, Else dread a dead man’s curse ; For this I sought thee. “ Far in the Northern land, By the wild Baltic’s strand, I, with my childish hand, Tamed the gerfalcon ; And with my skates fast bound Skimmed the half-frozen sound, That the poor whimpering hound Trembled to walk on. “ Oft to his frozen lair Tracked I the grisly bear, While from my path the hare Fled like a shadow ; HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 257 Oft through the forest dark Followed the were-wolf’s bark, Until the soaring lark Sang from the meadow. “ But when I older grew, Joining a corsair’s crew, O’er the dark sea I flew With the marauders. Wild was the life we led ; Many the souls that sped, Many the hearts that bled, By our stern orders. “ Many a wassail-bout Wore the long winter out ; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk’s tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the oaken pail, Filled to o’erflowing. “ Once as I told in glee Tales of the stormy sea, Soft eyes did gaze on me, Burning yet tender ; And as the white stars shine On the dark Norway pine, On that dark heart of mine Fell their soft splendor. “ I wooed the blue-eyed maid, Yielding, yet half afraid, And in the forest’s shade Our vows were plighted. AMERICAN LITERATURE. Under its loosened vest Fluttered her little breast, Like birds within their nest By the hawk frighted. “ Bright in her father’s hall Shields gleamed upon the wall, Loud sang the minstrels all, Chanting his glory : When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter’s hand, Mute did the minstrels stand To hear my story. “ While the brown ale he quaffed, Loud then the champion laughed, And as the wind-gusts waft The sea-foam brightly, So the loud laugh of scorn, Out of those lips unshorn, From the deep drinking-horn Blew the foam lightly. “ She was a prince’s child, 1 but a Viking wild, And, though she blushed and smiled, I was discarded ! Should not the dove so white Follow the sea-mew’s flight? Why did they leave that night Her nest unguarded ? “ Scarce had I put to sea, Bearing the maid with me — Fairest of all was she Among the Norsemen ! — HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 259 When on the white sea-strand, Waving his armed hand, Saw we old Hildebrand, With twenty horsemen. “ Then launched they to the blast, Bent like a reed each mast, Yet we were gaining fast, When the wind failed us ; And with a sudden flaw Came ’round the gusty Skaw, So that our foe we saw Laugh as he hailed us. “ And as to catch the gale Round veered the flapping sail, Death ! was the helmsman’s hail, Death without quarter ! Midships with iron keel Struck we her ribs of steel; Down her black hulk did reel Through the black water. “ As with his wings aslant Sails the fierce cormorant, Seeking some rocky haunt With his prey laden, So toward the open main, Beating to sea again, Through the wild hurricane Bore I the maiden. “ Three weeks we westward bore, And when the storm was o’er, Cloud-like, we saw the shore Stretching to leeward; 260 AMERICAN LITERATURE . There for my lady’s bower Built I the lofty tower Which, to this very hour, Stands looking seaward. “ There lived we many years ; Time dried the maiden’s tears ; She had forgot her fears, She was a mother ; Death closed her mild blue eyes ; Under that tower she lies; Ne’er shall the sun arise On such another. “ Still grew my bosom then, Still as a stagnant fen ; Hateful to me were men, The sunlight hateful. In the vast forest here, Clad in my warlike gear, Fell I upon my spear ; Oh, death was grateful ! “ Thus, seamed with many scars, Bursting its prison-bars, Up to its native stars My soul ascended ! There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior’s soul, Skoal! to the Northland! skoal ! 77 Thus the tale ended. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW . 261 A National Literature. [From Kavanagh.'] The visitor was shown in. He announced himself as Mr. Hathaway. Passing through the village, he could not deny himself the pleasure of calling on Mr. Churchill, whom he knew by his writings in the periodicals, though not personally. He wished, moreover, to secure the co- operation of one already so favorably known to the literary world in a new magazine he was about to establish in order to raise the character of American literature, which, in his opinion, the existing reviews and magazines had entirely failed to accomplish. A daily increasing want of some- thing better was felt by the public, and the time had come for the establishment of such a periodical as he proposed. After explaining in a rather florid and exuberant manner his plans and prospects, he entered more at large into the subject of American literature, which it was his design to foster and patronize. “ I think, Mr. Churchill,” said he, “ that we want a national literature commensurate with our mountains and rivers, commensurate with Niagara and the Allegha- nies and the Great Lakes.” “ Oh !” “ We want a national epic that shall correspond to the size of the country — that shall be to all other epics what Banvard’s Panorama of the Mississippi is to all other paintings — the largest in the world.” “Ah!” “We want a national drama in which scope enough shall be given to our gigantic ideas and to the unparalleled activity and progress of our people.” “ Of course.” “ In a word, we want a national literature altogether 262 AMERICAN LITERATURE . shaggy and unshorn, that shall shake the earth like a herd of buffaloes thundering over the prairies.” “ Precisely,” interrupted Mr. Churchill; “but — excuse me ! — are you not confounding things that have no anal- ogy ? ‘ Great 5 has a very different meaning when applied to a river and. when applied to a literature. ‘ Large 5 and ‘ shallow ’ may perhaps be applied to both. Literature is rather an image of the spiritual world than of the physical, is it not ? — of the internal rather than the external. Moun- tains, lakes, and rivers are, after all, only its scenery and decorations, not its substance and essence. A man will not necessarily be a great poet because he lives near a great mountain; nor, being a poet, will he necessarily write better poems than another because he lives nearer Niagara.” “ But, Mr. Churchill, you do not certainly mean to deny the influence of scenery on the mind ?” “ No, only to deny that it can create genius. At best it can only develop it. Switzerland has produced no extra- ordinary poet, nor, as far as I know, have the Andes, or the Himalaya Mountains, or the Mountains of the Moon in Africa.” “ But, at all events,” urged Mr. Hathaway, “ let us have our literature national. If it is not national it is nothing.” “ On the contrary, it may be a great deal. Nationality is a good thing to a certain extent, but universality is bet- ter. All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not what is national in them, but what is universal. Their roots are in their native soil, but their branches wave in the unpatriotic air that speaks the same language unto all men, and their leaves shine with the illimitable light that pervades all lands. Let us throw all the windows open ; let us admit the light and air on all sides, that we may look toward the four corners of the heavens, and not always in the same direction.” “ But you admit nationality to be a good thing ?” HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW . 263 “ Yes, if not carried too far ; still, I confess it rather limits one’s views of truth. I prefer what is natural. Mere nationality is often ridiculous. Every one smiles when he hears the Icelandic proverb, ‘ Iceland is the best land the sun shines upon.’ Let us be natural and we shall be national enough. Besides, our literature can be strictly national only so far as our character and modes of thought differ from those of other nations. Now, as we are very like the English — are, in fact, English under a different sky — I do not see how our literature can be very different from theirs. Westward from hand to hand we pass the lighted torch, but it was lighted at the old domestic fire- side of England.” “ Then you think our literature is never to be anything but an imitation of the English ?” “ Not at all. It is not an imitation, but, as some one has said, a continuation.” “ It seems to me that you take a very narrow view of the subject.” “ On the contrary, a very broad one. No literature is complete until the language in which it is written is dead. We may well be proud of our task and of our position. Let us see if we can build in any way worthy of our fore- fathers.” “ But I insist on originality.” “ Yes, but without spasms and convulsions. Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.” “Well, really, the prospect from your point of view is not very brilliant. Pray, what you do think of our na- tional literature ?” “ Simply, that a national literature is not the growth of a day. Centuries must contribute their dew and sunshine to it. Our own is growing slowly but surely, striking its roots downward and its branches upward, as is natural ; and I do not wish, for the sake of what some people call 264 AMERICAN LITERATURE . originality, to invert it, and try to make it grow with its roots in the air. And as for having it so savage and wild as you want it, I have only to say that all literature, as well as all art, is the result of culture and intellectual refine- ment.” “Ah! we do not want art and refinement; we want genius, untutored, wild, original, free.” “ But if this genius is to find any expression it must employ art, for art is the external expression of our thoughts. Many have genius, but, wanting art, are for ever dumb. The two must go together to form the great poet, painter, or sculptor.” “ In that sense, very well.” “ I was about to say also that I thought our literature would finally not be wanting in a kind of universality. As the blood of all nations is mingling with our own, so will their thoughts and feelings finally mingle in our liter- ature. We shall draw from the Germans, tenderness; from the Spaniards, passion ; from the French, vivacity, to mingle more and more with our English common sense. And this will give us universality, so much to be desired.” GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD. First Impressions of Venice. [From Six Months in Italy.] No city exerts so strong a spell over the imagination as Venice. The book of Rome has many more pages, but no one chapter like that of Venice. The history of Venice is full of dramatic interest, and poets of all nations have found it a fruitful storehouse of plot, incident, and charac- ter. Without doubt it had its fair proportion of prosaic tranquillity and its monotonous tracts of uneventful hap- GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD. 265 piness ; but these are unheeded in the splendor of the pic- turesque and salient points — its conquests, its revolutions, its conspiracies, and its judicial murders. Shakespeare makes us familiar with its name at an age when names are but sounds, and the forms with which he has peopled it are the first ever to greet the mind’s eye when we ap- proach it. Shylock still darkens the Rialto with his frown; the lordly form of Othello yet stalks across the Piazza of St. Mark’s ; and every veil that flutters in the breeze shrouds the roguish black eyes of Jessica. Pictures and engravings introduce us to its peculiar architecture, and we come into its presence with an image in our thoughts, and are not unprepared for what we see. Ven- ice never takes us by surprise. We are always forewarned and forearmed, and thus its unique character never has quite a fair chance with us. The whole scene, under the brilliant light of a noonday sun, is full of movement and color. As soon as the steamer has dropped anchor at the entrance of the Grand Canal, a little fleet of gondolas crowds around her, and we are charmed to find them looking exactly as we expected. As they receive the passengers they dart off in the most easy and graceful manner possible, their steel prows flashing in the sun and- their keels tracing a line of pearl upon the bright-green water. In time our own turn comes, and as we are borne along the Grand Canal the attention is every moment attracted by the splendid show on either side. The long wave which the prow turns over is dashed against a wall of marble-fronted palaces, the names of which, carelessly mentioned by the gondolier, awaken trains of golden memories in the mind. The breadth of the “silent highway ” allows the sun to lie in broad, rich masses upon the imposing gallery of architectural pictures, and to produce those happy accidents of light and shade which the artist loves. High in the air arise the domes and spires of the numerous churches with which wealth 266 AMERICAN LITERATURE . and devotion have crowded the islands of Venice, the bells of which are ever filling the air with their streams of un- dulating music. Everything is dreamlike and unsubstan- tial — a fairy pageant floating upon the waters ; a city of cloudland rather than of the earth. The gondola itself in which the traveller reclines contributes to weave the spell in which his thoughts and senses are involved. No form of locomotion ever gratifies so well the two warring tend- encies of the human soul — the love of movement and the love of repose. There is no noise, no fatigue, no danger, no dust. It is managed with such skill and so little apparent effort that it really seems to glide and turn by its own will. So far, the picture is all in light. But it is not without its shadows. A nearer view of the palaces which seem so beautiful in the distance reveals the decaying fortunes of their possessors. An indescribable but unmistakable air of careless neglect and unresisted dilapidation is every- where too plainly visible. Indeed, many of these stately structures are occupied as hotels and lodging-houses, their spacious apartments cut up by shabby wooden partitions and pervaded by an aspect of tawdry finery and moulder- ing splendor. On diverging from the Grand Canal to the right or left a change comes over the spirit of the scene. Instead of a broad highway of liquid chrysoprase, we find ourselves upon a narrow and muddy ditch. The sun is excluded by the height and proximity of the houses, and for the same reason there are no points of view for any- thing to be seen to advantage. All that meets the eye speaks of discomfort, dampness, and poverty. Slime, sea- weed, and mould cling to the walls. Water in small quan- tities is nothing if it be not pure. A fountain in the gar- den is beautiful, but the same quantity of water lying stagnant in one’s cellar is an eyesore. The wave that dashes against a ship is glorious^ but when it creeps into the hold through a defective seam it is a noisome OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 267 intruder. Venice wants the gilding presence of sunshine. In a long rain it must be the most dispiriting of places. So when we leave the sun we part with our best friend. The black, cold shadow under which the gondola creeps falls also upon the spirit. The ideal Venice — the superb bride- groom of the sea, clasped by the jewelled arms of his en- amored bride — disappears, and we have only a warmer Amsterdam. The reflection, too, forces itself upon us that Venice at all times was a city for the few and not for the many. Its nobles were lodged more royally than kings, but the common people must always have been thrust into holes close in summer, cold in winter, and damp at all times. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. The Last Leaf. I saw him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement-stones resound As he totters o’er the ground With his cane. They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time Cut him down, Not a better man was found By the crier on his round Through the town. But now he walks the streets, And he looks at all he meets 268 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 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 pressed 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, 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 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES . 269 In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling. My Aunt. My aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! Long years have o’er her flown, Yet still she strains the aching clasp That binds her virgin zone ; I know it hurts her, though she looks As cheerful as she can ; Her waist is ampler than her life, For life is but a span. My aunt ! my poor deluded aunt ! Her hair is almost gray ; Why will she train that winter curl In such a spring-like way ? How can she lay her glasses down And say she reads as well, When through a double convex lens She just makes out to spell ? Her father — grandpapa, forgive This erring lip its smiles — Vowed she should make the finest girl Within a hundred miles ; He sent her to a stylish school — ’Twas in her thirteenth June — And with her, as the rules required, “Two towels and a spoon.” 270 AMERICAN LITERATURE . They braced my aunt against a board, To make her straight and tall ; They laced her up, they starved her down, To make her light and small ; They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, They screwed it up with pins ; — Oh, never mortal suffered more In penance for her sins. So when my precious aunt was done, My grandsire brought her back (By daylight, lest some rabid youth Might follow on the track). “ Ah !” said my grandsire as he shook Some powder in his pan, “ What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man ?” Alas ! nor chariot, nor barouche, Nor bandit cavalcade, Tore from the trembling father’s arms His all-accomplished maid. For her how happy had it been ! And Heaven had spared to me To see one sad, ungathered rose On my ancestral tree. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 271 The Stratford Fountain * Welcome, thrice welcome, is thy silvery gleam, Thou long-imprisoned stream ! Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads As plashing raindrops to the flowery meads, As summer’s breath to Avon’s whispering reeds ! From rock-walled channels, drowned in rayless night, Leap forth to life and light ; Wake from the darkness of thy troubled dream, And greet with answering smile the morning’s beam ! No purer lymph the white-limbed Naiad knows Than from thy chalice flows : Not the bright spring of Afric’s sunny shores, Starry with spangles washed from golden ores, Nor glassy stream Blandusia’s fountain pours, Nor wave translucent where Sabrina fair Braids her loose-flowing hair, Nor the swift current, stainless as it rose Where chill Arveiron steals from Alpine snows. Here shall the traveller stay his weary feet To seek thy calm retreat ; Here at high noon the brown-armed reapers rest ; Here, when the shadows, lengthening from the west, Call the mute song-bird to his leafy nest, * In 1887, Mr. George W. Childs of Philadelphia, known in two continents for his liberality, presented to the town of Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, a handsome memorial fountain. The presentation ceremonies were memorable. Dr. Holmes wrote and Henry Irving read this exquisite poem, which emphasizes in its final stanza that union and affection which should for ever exist between two nations bound each to each bv such sacred associations and possessing mutually so rich an inheritance of splendid literature. 272 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Matron and maid shall chat the cares away That brooded o’er the day, While flocking round them troops of children meet, And all the arches ring with laughter sweet. Here shall the steed, his patient life who spends In toil that never ends, Hot from his thirsty tramp o’er hill and plain, Plunge his red nostrils, while the torturing rein Drops in loose loops beside his floating mane ; Nor the poor brute that shares his master’s lot Find his small needs forgot, — Truest of humble, long-enduring friends, Whose presence cheers, whose guardian care defends ! Here lark and thrush and nightingale shall sip, And skimming swallows dip, And strange shy wanderers fold their lustrous plumes, Fragrant from bowers that lent their sweet perfumes Where Paestum’s rose or Persia’s lilac blooms; Here from his cloud the eagle stoops to drink At the full basin’s brink, And whet his beak against its rounded lip, His glossy feathers glistening as they drip. Here shall the dreaming poet linger long, Far from his listening throng ; No lute nor lyre his trembling hand shall bring; Here no frail Muse shall imp her crippled wing, No faltering minstrel strain his throat to sing. These hallowed echoes who shall dare to claim Whose tuneless voice would shame, Whose jangling chords with jarring notes would wrong The nymphs that heard the Swan of Avon’s song ? OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 273 What visions greet the pilgrim’s raptured eyes ! What ghosts made real rise ! The dead return ; they breathe, they live again, Joined by the hosts of Fancy’s airy train, Fresh from the springs of Shakespeare’s quickening brain ! The stream that slakes the soul’s diviner thirst Here found the sunbeams first ; Rich with his fame, not less shall memory prize The gracious gift that humbler wants supplies. O’er the wide waters reached the hand that gave To all this bounteous wave, With health and strength and joyous beauty fraught ; Blest be the generous pledge of friendship, brought From the far home of brothers’ love unbought ; Long may fair Avon’s fountain flow, enrolled With storied shrines of old, Castalia’s spring, Egeria’s dewy cave, And Horeb’s rock the God of Israel clave. Land of our fathers ! ocean makes us two, But heart to heart is true. Proud is your towering daughter in the West, Yet in her burning lifeblood reign contest Her mother’s pulses beating in her breast. This holy fount, whose rills from heaven descend, Its gracious drops shall lend — Both foreheads bathed in that baptismal dew, And love make one the old home and the new. 18 4 AMERICAN LITERATURE. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, To the Dandelion. Dear common flower, that grow’st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o’erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found, Which not the rich earth’s ample round . May match in wealth ! thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne’er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover’s heart of ease ; ’Tis the Spring’s largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God’s value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : Not in mid June the golden-cuirass’d bee Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment In the white lily’s breezy tent, His fragrant Sybaris, than I when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL . 275 Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways— Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass Or whiten in the wind— of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap — and of a sky above Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhood’s earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; The sight of thee calls back the robin’s song, Who from the dark old tree Beside the door sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he did bring Fresh every day to my untainted ears, When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. Thou art the type of those meek charities Which make up half the nobleness of life, Those cheap delights the wise Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth’s strife — Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes, Love’s smallest coin, which yet to some may give The morsel that may keep alive A starving heart, and teach it to behold Some glimpse of God where all before was cold. Thy winged seeds, whereof the winds take care, Are like the words of poet and of sage, Which through the free heaven fare, And, now unheeded, in another age Take root, and to the gladdened future bear 276 AMERICAN LITERATURE. That witness which the present would not heed, Bringing forth many a thought and deed, And, planted safely in the eternal sky, Bloom into stars which earth is guided by. Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full Than all thy common brethren of the ground, Wherein, were we not dull, Some words of highest wisdom might be found. Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make A spell to soothe life’s bitterest ache, And ope heaven’s portals, which are near us still — Yea, nearer ever than the gates of ill. How like a prodigal doth Nature seem When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show Did we but pay the love we owe, And with a child’s undoubting wisdom look On all these living pages of God’s book. But let me read thy lesson right or no, Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure : Old I shall never grow While thou each year dost come to keep me pure With legends of my childhood. Ah, we owe Well more than half life’s holiness to these Nature’s first lowly influences, At thought of which the heart’s glad doors burst ope, In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 277 The Gothic Genius. [From The Cathedral .] I seem to have heard it said by learned folk, Who drench you with sesthetics till you feel As if all beauty were a ghastly bore, The faucet to let loose a wash of words, That Gothic is not Grecian, therefore worse ; But, being convinced by much experiment How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies, I give thanks For a new relish, careless to inquire My pleasure’s pedigree, if so it please — Nobly I mean, nor renegade to art. The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness, Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, The one thing finished in this hasty world — For ever finished, though the barbarous pit, Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout As if a miracle could be encored. But ah ! this other, this that never ends, Still climbing, luring Fancy still to climb, As full of morals half divined as life, Graceful, grotesque, with ever-new surprise Of hazardous caprices sure to please ; Heavy as nightmare, airy-light as fern, Imagination’s very self in stone ! With one long sigh of infinite release From pedantries past, present, or to come, I looked, and owned myself a happy Goth. Your blood is mine, ye architects of dream, Builders of aspiration incomplete, So more consummate, souls self-confident, Who felt your own thought worthy of record In monumental pomp ! No Grecian drop • 278 AMERICAN LITERATURE . Rebukes these veins that leap with kindred thrill, After long exile, to the mother tongue. Lines on a Window in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster. The New World’s sons, from England’s breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came ; Proud of her past, from which our future grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh’s name. On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners. [From My Study - Windows.] So long as we continue to be the most common-schooled and the least cultivated people in the world, I suppose we must consent to endure this condescending manner of foreigners toward us. The more friendly they mean to be, the more ludicrously prominent it becomes. They can never appreciate the immense amount of silent work that has been done here, making this continent slowly fit for the abode of man, and which will demonstrate itself, let us hope, in the character of the people. Outsiders can only be expected to judge a nation by the amount it has con- tributed to the civilization of the world — the amount, that is, that can be seen and handled. A great place in history can only be achieved by competitive examinations — nay, by a long course of them. How much new thought have we contributed to the common stock ? Till that question can be triumphantly answered or needs no answer, we must continue to be simply interesting as an experiment, to be studied as a problem, and not respected as an attained result or an accomplished solution. Perhaps, as I have hinted, their patronizing manner toward us is the fair result of their failing to see here anything more than a poor imita- JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL . 279 tion, a plaster cast, of Europe. And are they not partly right ? If the tone of the uncultivated American has too often the arrogance of the barbarian, is not that of the cul- tivated as often vulgarly apologetic? In the America they meet with is there the simplicity, the manliness, the ab- sence of sham, the sincere human nature, the sensitiveness to duty and implied obligation, that in any way distin- guishes us from what our orators call “ the effete civiliza- tion of the Old World ”? Is there a politician among us daring enough (except a Dana here and there) to risk his future on the chance of our keeping our word with the ex- actness of superstitious communities like England ? Is it certain that we shall be ashamed of a bankruptcy of honor if we can only keep the letter of our bond ? I hope we shall be able to answer all these questions with a frank “ Yes.” At any rate, we would advise our visitors that we are not merely curious creatures, but belong to the family of man, and that as individuals we are not to be always subjected to the competitive examination above mentioned, even if we acknowledge their competence as an examining board. Above all, we beg them to remember that America is not to us, as to them, a mere object of external interest to be discussed and analyzed, but in us, part of our very marrow. Let them not suppose that we conceive of our- selves as exiles from the graces and amenities of an older date than we, though very much at home in a state of things not yet all it might be or should be, but which we mean to make so, and which we find both wholesome and pleasant for men (though perhaps not for dilettanti) to live in. “ The full tide of human existence ” may be felt here as keenly as Johnson felt it at Charing Cross, and in a larger sense. I know one person who is singular enough to think Cambridge the very best spot on the habitable globe. “ Doubtless God could have made a better, but doubtless he never did.” It will take England a great while to get over her airs 280 AMERICAN LITERATURE. of patronage toward us, or even passably to conceal them. She cannot help confounding the people with the country, and regarding us as lusty juveniles. She has a conviction that whatever good there is in us is wholly English, when the truth is that we are worth nothing except so far as we have disinfected ourselves of Anglicism. She is especially condescending just now, and lavishes sugar-plums on us as if we had not outgrown them. I am no believer in sudden conversions, especially in sudden conversions to a favorable opinion of people who have just proved you to be mistaken in judgment and therefore unwise in policy. I never blamed her for not wishing well to democracy — how should she ? — but Alabamas are not wishes. Let her not be too hasty in believing Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s pleas- ant words. Though there is no thoughtful man in America who would not consider a war with England the greatest of calamities, yet the feeling toward her here is very far from cordial, whatever our minister may say in the effu- sion that comes after ample dining. Mr. Adams, with his famous a My Lord, this means war,” perfectly represented his country. Justly or not, w^e have a feeling that we have been wronged, not merely insulted. The only sure way of bringing about a healthy relation between the two coun- tries is for Englishmen to clear their minds of the notion that we are always to be treated as a kind of inferior and deported Englishman whose nature they perfectly understand, and whose back they accordingly stroke the wrong way of the fur with amazing perseverance. Let them learn to treat us naturally on our merits as human beings, as they would a German or a Frenchman, and not as if we were a kind of counterfeit Briton whose crime appeared in every shade of difference ; and before long there would come that right feeling which we naturally call a good understanding. The common blood, and still more the common lan- guage, are fatal instruments of misapprehension. Let JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 2S1 them give up trying to understand us — still more, think- ing that they do — and acting in various absurd ways as the necessary consequence; for they will never arrive at that devoutly-to-be-wished consummation till they learn to look at us as we are, and not as they suppose us to be. Dear old long-estranged mother-in-law ! it is a great many years since we parted. Since 1660, when you married again, you have been a stepmother to us. Put on your spectacles, dear madam. Yes, we have grown, and changed likewise. You would not let us darken your doors if you could help it. We know that perfectly well. But, pray, when we look to be treated as men, don’t shake that rattle in our faces nor talk baby to us any longer. “Do, child, go to it grandam, child; Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a tig 1” Classical Education. [From the oration on the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Har- vard College.] One is sometimes tempted to think that all learning is as repulsive to ingenuous youth as the multiplication table to Scott’s little friend Marjorie Fleming, though this is due in great part to mechanical methods of teaching. “ I am now going to tell you,” she writes, “ the horrible and wretched plaege that my multiplication table gives me: you can’t conceive it; the most Devilish thing is eight times eight and seven times seven ; it is what Nature itself can’t endure.” I know that I am approaching treacherous ashes which cover burning coals, but I must on. Is not Greek — nay, even Latin — yet more unendurable than poor Marjorie’s task? How many boys have not sympathized with Heine in hating the Romans because 282 AMERICAN LITERATURE. they invented Latin grammar? And they were quite right, for we begin the study of languages at the wrong end — at the end which Nature does not offer us — and are thoroughly tired of them before we arrive at them, if you will pardon the bull. But is that any reason for not studying them in the right way ? I am familiar with the arguments for making the study of Greek especially a matter of choice or chance. I admit their plausibility, and the honesty of those who urge them. I should be willing also to admit that the study of the ancient languages without the hope or the prospect of going on to what they contain would be useful only as a form of intellectual gymnastics. Even so they would be as serviceable as the higher mathematics to most of us. But I think that a wise teacher should adapt his tasks to the highest, and not the lowest, capacities of the taught. For those lower also they would not be wholly without profit. When there is a tedious sermon, says George Herbert, God takes a text and teacheth patience — not the least pregnant of lessons. One of the arguments against the compulsory study of Greek — namely, that it is wiser to give our time to modern languages and modern history than to dead languages and ancient history — in- volves, I think, a verbal fallacy. Only those languages can properly be called dead in which nothing living has been written. If the classic languages are dead, they yet speak to us, and with a clearer voice than that of any living tongue. Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo Musa loqui, praeter laudem nullius avaris. If their language is dead, yet the literature it enshrines is rammed with life as perhaps no other writing, except Shakespeare’s, ever was or will be. It is as contemporary with to-day as with the ears it first enraptured, for it appeals not to the man of then or now, but to the entire JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL . 283 round of human nature itself. Men are ephemeral or evanescent, but whatever page the authentic soul of man has touched with her immortalizing finger, no matter how long ago, is still young and fair as it was to the world’s gray fathers. Oblivion looks in the face of the Grecian Muse only to forget her errand. Plato and Aristotle are not names, but things. On a chart that should represent the firm earth and wavering oceans of the human mind, they would be marked as mountain-ranges, for ever mod- ifying the temperature, the currents, and the atmosphere of thought — astronomical stations whence the move- ments of the lamps of heaven might best be observed and predicted. Even for the mastering of our own tongue there is no expedient so fruitful as translation out of another: how much more when that other is a language at once so precise and so flexible as the Greek ! Greek literature is also the most fruitful comment on our own. Coleridge has told us with what profit he was made to study Shakespeare and Milton in conjunction with the Greek dramatists. It is no sentimental argument for this study that the most justly balanced, the most serene, and the most fecundating minds since the revival of learning have been steeped in and saturated with Greek literature. We know not whither other studies will lead us, especially if dissociated from this : we do know to what summits far above our region of turmoil this has led, and what the many-sided outlook thence. Will such studies make anachronisms of us, unfit us for the duties and the busi- ness of to-day ? I can recall no writer more truly modern than Montaigne, who was almost more at home in Athens and Rome than in Paris. Yet he was a thrifty manager of his estate and a most competent mayor of Bordeaux. I remember passing once in London where demolition for a new thoroughfare was going on. Many houses left standing in the rear of those cleared away bore signs with 284 AMERICAN LITERATURE. the inscription “ Ancient Lights.” This was the protest of their owners against being built out by the new im- provements from such glimpse of heaven as their fathers had, without adequate equivalent. I laid the moral to heart. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. The Fall of Antwerp. [From The Rise of the Dutch Republic.'] Meantime, the Spanish cavalry had cleft its way through the city. On the side farthest removed from the castle, along the horse-market, opposite the New-town, the States dragoons and the light-horse of Beveren had been posted, and the flying masses of pursuers and pursued swept at last through this outer circle. Champagny was already there. He essayed, as his last hope, to rally the cavalry for a final stand, but the effort was fruitless. Already seized by the panic, they had attempted to rush from the city through the gate of Eeker. It was locked ; they then turned and fled toward the Red Gate, where they were met face to face by Don Pedro Tassis, who charged upon them with his dragoons. Retreat seemed hopeless. A horse- man in complete armor, with lance in rest, was seen to leap from the parapet of the outer wall into the moat below, whence, still on horseback, he escaped with life. Few were so fortunate. The confused mob of fugitives and conquerors — Spaniards, Walloons, Germans, burgh- ers — struggling, shouting, striking, cursing, dying, swayed hither and thither like a stormy sea. Along the spacious horse-market the fugitives fled onward toward the quays. Many fell beneath the swords of the Spaniards, numbers were trodden to death by the hoofs of horses, still greater JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 285 multitudes were hunted into the Scheld. Champagny, who had thought it possible, even at the last moment, to make a stand in the New-town and to fortify the palace of the Hansa, saw himself deserted. With great daring and presence of mind he effected his escape to the fleet of the prince of Orange in the river. The marquis of Havre, of whom no deeds of valor on that eventful day have been recorded, was equally successful. The unlucky Oberstein, attempting to leap into a boat, missed his footing, and, oppressed by the weight of his armor, was drowned. Meantime, while the short November day was fast declining, the combat still raged in the interior of the city. Various currents of conflict, forcing their separate way through many streets, had at last mingled in the Grande Place. Around this irregular, not very spacious square stood the gorgous hotel de ville and the tall, many- storied, fantastically-gabled, richly-decorated palaces of the guilds. There a long struggle took place. It was termi- nated for a time by the cavalry of Vargas, who, arriving through the streets of Saint Joris, accompanied by the traitor Van Ende, charged decisively into the melee. The masses were broken, but multitudes of armed men found refuge in the buildings, and every house became a fortress. From every window and balcony a hot fire was poured into the square, as, pent in a corner, the burghers stood at last at bay. It was difficult to carry the houses by storm, but they were soon set on fire. A large number of sutlers and other varlets had accompanied the Spaniards from the citadel, bringing torches and kindling materials for the express purpose of firing the town. With great dexterity these means were now applied, and in a brief interval the city-hall and other edifices on the square were in flames. The conflagration spread with rapidity, house after house, street after street, taking fire. Nearly a thou- sand buildings in the most splendid and wealthy quarter of the city were soon in a blaze, and multitudes of human 286 AMERICAN LITERATURE . beings were burned with them. In the city-hall many were consumed, while others leaped from the windows to renew the combat below. The many tortuous streets which led down a slight descent from the rear of the town-house to the quays were all one vast conflagra- tion. On the other side the magnificent cathedral, sep- arated from the Grande Place by a single row of build- ings, was lighted up, but not attacked, by the flames. The tall spire cast its gigantic shadow across the last desperate conflict. In the street called the Canal au Sucre, immediately behind the town-house, there was a fierce struggle, a horrible massacre. A crowd of burgh- ers, grave magistrates, and such of the German soldiers as remained alive still confronted the ferocious Spaniards. There, amid the flaming desolation, Goswyn Verreyck, the heroic margrave of the city, fought with the energy of hatred and despair. The burgomaster, Van der Meere, lay dead at his feet : senators, soldiers, citizens fell fast around him, and he sank at last upon a heap of slain. With him effectual resistance ended. The remaining combatants were butchered or were slowly forced downward to perish in the Scheld. Women, children, old men, were killed in count- less numbers, and still, through all this havoc, directly over the heads of the struggling throng, suspended in mid-air above the din and smoke of the conflict, there sounded^ every half-quarter of every hour, as if in gentle mockery, from the belfry of the cathedral the tender and melodious chimes. EDGAR ALLAN POE. 287 EDGAR ALLAN POE. The Cask of Amontillado. [From The Prose Tales .] The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled, but the very definiteness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unre- dressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong. It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good-will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation. He had a weak point, this Fortunato, although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and oppor- tunity — to practise imposture upon the British and Aus- trian millionaires. In painting and gemmary Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially : I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could. It was about dusk one evening during the supreme mad- ness of the carnival season that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been 288 AMERICAN LITERATURE. drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand. I said to him, “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day ! But I have received a pipe of what passes for amontillado, and I have my doubts.” “ How !” said he, “ amontillado ? A pipe ? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival !” “ I have my doubts,” I replied ; “ and I was silly enough to pay the full amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fear- ful of losing a bargain.” “ Amontillado !” “ I have my doubts.” “ Amontillado !” “ And I must satisfy them.” “ Amontillado !” “ As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me — ” “ Luchesi cannot tell amontillado from sherry.” “ And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.” “ Come, let us go.” “ Whither?” “ To your vaults.” “ My friend, no ; I will not impose upon your good- nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi — ” “ I have no engagement — come.” “ My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.” “ Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. EDGAR ALLAN POE. 289 Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish sherry from amontillado.” Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo. There were no attendants at home ; they had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to ensure their immediate dis- appearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned. I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and, giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. AVe came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together on the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors. The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode. “ The pipe ?” said he. “ It is farther on,” said I ; “ but observe the white web- work which gleams from these cavern walls.” He turned toward me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication. “ Nitre ?” he asked at length. u Nitre,” I replied. “How long have you had that cough ?” “ Ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! — ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! — ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! — ugh ! ugh ! ugh !” My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes. “ It is nothing,” he said, at last. “ Come,” I said, with decision, “ we will go back ; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, be- 19 290 AMERICAN LITERATURE . loved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi— ” “Enough!” he said; “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.” “ True, true,” I replied ; “ and, indeed, I had no inten- tion of alarming you- unnecessarily, but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this medoc will defend us from the damps.” Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould. “ Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine. He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled. “ I drink,” he said, “ to the buried that repose around us.” “ And I to your long life.” He again took my arm, and we proceeded. “ These vaults,” he said, “ are extensive.” “ The Montresors,” I replied, “ were a great and numer- ous family.” “ I forget your arms.” “A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.” “ And the motto.” “ Nemo me impune lacessit .” “ Good !” he said. The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the medoc. We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize For- tunato by an arm above the elbow. “The nitre!” I said; “see, it increases. It hangs like EDGAR ALLAN POE . 291 moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough — ” “ It is nothing,” he said ; “ let us go on. But first, an- other draught of the medoc.” I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upward with a gesticulation I did not understand. I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the move- ment — a grotesque one. “ You do not comprehend?” he said. “ Not I,” I replied. “ Then you are not of the brotherhood.” “ How ?” “ You are not of the Masons.” “ Yes, yes,” I said — “ yes, yes.” “ You? Impossible ! A Mason?” “ A Mason,” I replied. “ A sign,” he said. “ It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire. “You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. “ But let us proceed to the amontillado.” “ Be it so,” I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heav- ily. We continued our route in search of the amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and, descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in w T hich the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame. At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this 292 AMERICAN LITERATURE. manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the walls thus exposed by the displacing of the bones we per- ceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite. It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depth of the recess. Its ter- mination the feeble light did not enable us to see. “ Proceed/’ I said ; “ herein is the amontillado. As for Luchesi — ” “ He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immedi- ately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and, finding his progress ar- rested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key, I stepped back from the recess. “ Pass your hand,” I said, “ over the wall ; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.” “ The amontillado !” ejaculated my friend, not yet recov- ered from his astonishment. EDGAR ALLAN POE. 293 “ True,” I replied ; “ the amontillado.” As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building-stone and mortar. With these materials and the aid of my trowel I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche. I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth, and then I heard the furious vibra- tions of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within. A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting sud- denly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesi- tated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs and felt satisfied. I reap- proached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamored. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamorer grew still. It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the 294 AMERICAN LITERATURE , eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said, “ Ha ! ha ! ha ! — he ! he ! — a very good joke indeed — an excellent jest! We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo — he ! he ! he ! — over our w r ine — he! he! he!” “ The amontillado !” I said. “ He ! he ! he ! — he ! he ! he ! — yes, the amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.” “Yes,” I said, “let us be gone.” “ For the love of God , Montresor /” “Yes,” I said, “for the love of God.” But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud, “ Fortunato !” No answer. I called again, “ Fortunato !” No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remain- ing aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick — on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position ; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a them. In pace requiescat ! EDGAR ALLAN POE . 295 To Helen. Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo ! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand ! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land ! Ulalume. The skies they were ashen and sober ; The leaves they were crisped and sere — The leaves they were withering and sere ; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year ; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid-region of Weir — It was down by the dank tarn of Auber In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Here once, through an alley Titanic Of cypress, I roamed with my soul — Of cypress, with Psyche, my soul. These were days when my heart was volcanic 296 AMERICAN LITERATURE. As the scoriae rivers that roll — As the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole — That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole. Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere — Our memories were treacherous and sere — For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year — (Ah, night of all nights in the year !) We noted not the dim lake of Auber — (Though once we had journeyed down here) — - Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. And now, as the night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to morn — As the star-dials hinted of morn — At the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn — Astarte’s bediamonded crescent, Distinct with its duplicate horn. And I said, “ She is warmer than Dian : She rolls through an ether of sighs — She revels in a region of sighs : She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion To point us the path to the skies — To the Lethean peace of the skies — EDGAR ALLAN POE. 297 Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes — Come up through the lair of the Lion With love in her luminous eyes.” But Psyche, uplifting her finger, Said, “ Sadly this star I mistrust — Her pallor I strangely mistrust. Oh, hasten ! — oh, let us not linger ! Oh, fly ! let us fly ! for we must.” 1 n terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings until they trailed in the dust — In agony sobbed, letting sink her Plumes till they trailed in the dust — Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. I replied, “ This is nothing but dreaming : Let us on by this tremulous light — Let us bathe in this crystalline light ! Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night. See ! it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright — We safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to heaven through the night.” Thus I pacified Psyche, and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom — And conquered her scruples and gloom ; And we passed to the end of the vista. But were stopped by the door of a tomb — By the door of a legended tomb ; 298 AMERICAN LITERATURE . And I said, “ What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb ?” She replied, “ Ulalume — Ulalume — ’Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume !” Then my heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crisped and sere — As the leaves that were withering and sere, And I cried, “ It was surely October, On this very night of last year, That I journeyed — I journeyed down here — That I brought a dread burden down here. On this night of all nights in the year, Ah, what demon has tempted me here ? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber — This misty mid-region of Weir — Well I know now, this dank tarn of Auber, This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.” Acadia, 105. Adams, John, 30, 66, 75. Adams, John Quincy, 67, 71. Adams, Samuel, 27, 28. Addison, J., 41. Agassiz, Louis, 109, 110. Alcott, A. B., 81, 84, 89. Alcott, L. M., 84. Aldrich, T. B., 105, 151, 154. Allan, John, 127. Allston, W., 71, 72, 155. Alsop, Richard, 36. Ames, Fisher, 30, 32, 37. Anarchiad, The , 36. Anthology Club, 71, 75. Arbuthnot, J., 47. Argonauts of ’J/,9, 147. Astor, J. J., 43, 57. Atlantic Monthly , 115, 137-139, 141. Autobiography of Franklin , 21. Bacon, Francis, 9. Ballads, 36, 37. Bancroft, George, 88, 119, 121, 128, 126. Barlow, Joel, 33-37. Bay Psalm-Book , 16. Beckford, W., 48. Beecher, Dr. Lyman, 95. Beers, E. L., 145. Berkeley, Sir W., 13. I Bird, R. M., 61, 135. I Blair, Judge, 16. Boker, G. H., 151, 155. Bowdoin College, 102. ! Bradford, Andrew, 22. j Bradford, William, 17. i Bradstreet, Anne, 18. Brainard, J. G. C., 72. Bridgeman, Laura, 145. Brook Farm, 80-82, 84, 85, 89. Brooks, M. G., 72. Brooks, P. S., 94. Brown, C. B., 40, 47, 48, 53, 133. Brown, J., 93. Brown University, 16. Browne, C. F., 159, 160. ! Brownell, H. H., 145. Bryan, S. M., 150. Bryant, W. C., 46, 57-60, 62, 71, 100, 106, 109, 153, 164, 207. Buckminster, J. S., 68, 72, 73. | Bull, Ole, 104. Burke, Edmund, 29. Burnett, F. H., 138, 139. Burr, Aaron, 32. Butler, Samuel, 34. ! Byron, Lord, 45, 64, 75. Cable, G. W., 142. Calhoun, J. C., 65, 66, 70, 71. ! Calvert, G. H., 131. ;yy 300 INDEX Campbell, John, 22. Carey, Alice, 146. Carey, Phoebe, 146. Carlyle, Thomas, 76, 94, 116. Channing, E. T., 71. Channing, W. E., 63, 64, 65, 72, 73, 75, 79, 81, 83, 98, 226. Channing, W. E., 85. Channing, W. H., 81, 84, 85. Chaucer, G., 104. Child, F. J., 162. Child, L. M., 28, 133, 134. Choate, Rufus, 65, 69, 70, 222. Clay, Henry, 65, 71. Clark, J. F., 83, 111. Clemens, S. L., 159, 160. Cleveland, H. R., 109, 110. Clough, A. H., 106. Coleridge, S. T., 64, 71, 76, 81, 130. Columbia d, The , 34, 35. Colleges : Brown University, 16. College of New Jersey, 16, 36. Columbia College, 16. Dartmouth, 66, 69, 112. Harvard, 15, 63, 68, 71, 72, 74, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 119, 121, 122, 123, 125. University of Pennsylvania, 16, 20 . University of Virginia, 30, 127. William and Mary, 15, 16, 30. Williams, 58. Yale, 16, 49. Constitution, the, 30, 31. Cooke, J. E., 131. Cooke, Pendleton, 131. Cooke, R. T., 138. Cooper, J. F., 46, 48-56, 91, 106, 133, 195. Cranch, C. P., 81, 106. Crawford, F. M., 142, 143. Crisis , The, 29. “ Croaker & Co.,” 56, 57. Curtis, G. W., 39, 81, 82. Cuvier, 75, 110. Dana, Charles A., 81, 82. Dana, R. H., 71. Dana, R. H., Jr., 111. Dante, 106, 153. Davis, R. H., 138. “ Day of Doom,” 18. Defoe, D., 41. Dewey, O., 72, 73. Dial, The, 77, 80, 81. Drake, J. R., 46, 55, 56, 57, 62, 116, 204. Draper, Prof., 144. Drayton, M., 10, 108. Dwight, Prof., 65. Dwight, Theo., 36. Dwight, Timothy, 36, 57. Edwards, Jonathan, 16, 19, 36, 39, 76. Eggleston, E., 142, 150. Eliot, Bishop, 16, 81. Elliott, 98. Emerson, R. W., 28, 65, 74-81, 83, 84, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 109, 113, 115, 116, 117, 127, 159, 227. Emerson, Rev. Wm., 28, 75, 89. Endicott, J., 88, 104. Everett, A. H., 65, 67, 68. Everett, Edward, 63, 65, 68, 69, 71, 75, 125, 220. Farragut, Admiral, 145. Federalist, The, 31. Felton, C. C., 109. u Fern, Fanny,” 161. Fielding, H., 47. Finch, F. M., 144. INDEX. 301 First literary journal, 22. First printing-press, 16. Fiske, J., 119, 126. Folger, P., 19. Follen, Charles, 72, 74. Foote, S. A., 66. Forrest, E., 135. Franklin, B., 19, 20, 21, 22, 29, 36, 38, 39, 40, 75, 12% 126, 161, 168. Franklin, J., 22. Freeman, E. A., 126. Freneau, P., 33, 35, 37, 106, 181. Fruitlands, 84. Fuller, M., 77, 81, 83, 84, 94, 111, 236. Furness, H. H., 162, 163. Garibaldi, 98. Garrison, W. L., 93, 94-97. Gladstone, W. E., 31. Godwin, Wm., 47, 53. Good Neivs from Virginia , 1 3. Gore, C., 66. Goethe, 64, 75, 78, 103. Grant, U. S., 144. Greeley, H., 144, 151. Greene, G. W., 109, 111. Haggard, R., 135. Hale, E. E., 137. Halleck, F., 46, 55, 56, 57, 62, 116, 206. Hamilton, A., 30, 31, 32, 126. Hammond, J., 14. Harper's Magazine, 141, 162. Harte, Bret, 148, 150. Harvard, J., 15. Hawthorne, J., 93. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 18, 81, 83, 84, 87-93, 96, 98, 102, 112, 115, 116, 127, 130, 133, 240. Hayes, President, 115. Hayne, P. H., 131, 132. j Hayne, R. Y., 65, 70, 131. Hedge, Prof., 66. Henry, Patrick, 24, 28. Higginson, T. \V., 161. Hildreth, R., 95, 119, 125, 126. j Hillard, G. S., 109, 110, 264. * Hillhouse, J., 72. | History of New England, 17. ; History of Plymouth, 17. | Holland, J. G., 136. j Holmes, O. W., 77, 101, 111-114, 115, 145, 159, 267. ! Homer, 59, 106, 153. 1 Hopkins, L, 36. Hopkinson, F., 37. Hopkinson, J., 37. ( Howe, J. W., 144, 145. Howells, W. D., 140, 141. Hudibras, 34. Humboldt, A., 110. Humor, American, 159. I Humphreys, D., 36. j Hunt, H.,146, 147. Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, 19. Irving, W., 27, 39-46, 53, 57, 58, 62, 91, 102, 120, 122, 159, 183. Jackson, Dr. C., 76. James, H., Jr., 140, 141, 142. Jay, J., 30, 31. Jefferson, T., 16, 30, 31, 58, 65, 66, 75, 126, 173. Jewett, S. O., 138, 139. Jones, J. P., 52. Judd, Sylvester, 136. Keats, J., 75, 131. Kennedy, J. P., 128, 134. 302 INDEX. Key, F. S., 131. Kingsley, C., 106. Kirk, J. F., 119, 126. Knickerbocker, Diedrich, 41, 44. Knickerbocker School, 46. Kossuth, L., 98. Lamb, C., 72. Landor, W. S., 76. Lanier, S., 132. Larcom, L., 146. Lazarus, E., 146. Lea, H. C., 121. Leah and Rachel, 13. Leather-Stocking Tales, 50, 51. Leland, C. G., 151, 156. Lewis, “ Monk,” 48. Longfellow, H. W., 18, 28, 88, 92, 98,101-109, 111,114,115,116, 118, 127, 251. Lounsbury, Prof., 51. Lowell, J. R., 10, 34, 55, 77, 78, 101, 106, 109, 114-118, 127, 136, 145, 159, 162, 274. Macaulay, T., 118, 120. MacMaster, J. B., 119, 126. Madison, J., 30, 31, 33, 35. McFingal, 34. Magnolia , The , 19. Marryat, Captain, 52. Marshall, J., 30, 32. Marvel, Ik (see Mitchell , D. G.). Mather, C., 18, 38, 167. Mayo, W. S., 135. Melville, H., 135. Merry Mount, 17, 18, 122. Miller, J., 148, 149, 150. Milton, J., 98. Mitchell, D. G., 160, 161. Monroe, J., 16. Morris, Gouverneur, 125. Morris, G. P., 60. Morton, T., 17. Motley, J. L., 18, 113, 119,121-123, 284. Moulton, L. C., 138, 139. Murfree, M. N., 138, 140. New England Canaan , 17. New France, 25, 26. Newspapers, 22. North American Review , 68, 71, 72, 75, 115, 122. Norton, C. E., 80, 106, 115. Ossolt, M., 83. Otis, J., 27, 28. Overland Monthly , 148. Paine, T., 28, 29, 30. Palfrey, J. G., 119, 125. Parker, T., 81, 84, 85, 161. Parkman, F., 119, 123-125. Parsons, T. W., 104, 109, 110, 111. Parton, J., 161. Paulding, J. K., 41, 46, 47. Pavne, J. H., 61. Peirce, B., 111. Percival, J. G., 72. Phelps, E. S., 138, 139. Phillips, W., 93, 94, 161. Piatt, J. J., 140, 150. Pierce, F., 88, 89, 90. Pierpont, J., 72. Pike, A., 131, 145. Pinkney, E. C., 131. Pleiades of Connecticut, 36. Poe, E. A., 45, 48, 116, 127-131, 133, 159, 287. Polk, President, 121. “ Poor Richard,” 21. Pope, A., 38, 58, 64. INDEX. 303 Pre-Raphaelites, 155. Prescott, W. H., 119, 120, 122, 12' Preston, M., 146. Quincy, J., 27, 28. Randall, J. R., 144. Read, T. B., 144, 151, 155. Revere, Paul, 28, 104. Richardson, S., 47. Richter, J. P., 103. Ripley, G., 64, 81, 82, 83, 84, 11C Root, G. F., 145. Russell, C., 52. Sands, R. C., 58. Sandys, G., 13. Scott, Sir Walter, 41, 45, 48, 49, 5 53, 55, 64, 75, 95. Scribners Monthly , 137. Sedgwick, C. M., 133, 134. Shakespeare, W., 9, 10, 38, 78. Shelley, P. B., 47, 48, 64, 75, 130. Sheridan, P., 144. Sherman, W. T., 144. Sigourney, L. H., 72. Simms, W. G., 132, 134. Simple Cobbler of Aggawam, 18. Sketch-Book , The, , 42, 44, 45, 48, 59, 102 . Smith, E., 36. Smith, J., 14. Smith, Seba, 159. Smith, S. F., 111. Smollett, T., 47. Southern Literary Messenger, 128. Southey, R., 72, 81. Sparks, J., 119, 125. Spencer, H., 126. Spofford, H. E. P., 138, 139. Sprague, C., 72. I Spy , The , 50, 59. t. I Standish, M., 12, 17. Stanley, A. P., 122. j Stedman, E. C., 151. 154, 162. ; Stephen, L., 130. | Stephens, A., 144. Sterne, L., 41, 47. Stoddard, R. H., 151, 153, 154. Stone, J. A., 61. Story, Jos., 30, 33, 179. Story, W. W., 33. Stowe, C. E., 95. '■ Stowe, H. B., 93, 95, 96. Sumner, C., 93, 98, 109, 110. Sumner, H., 94. Swift, J., 41. Taylor, B., 106, 150-153. 1, I Taylor-Hansen, M., 153. | Thackeray, W. M., 134. “ Thanatopsis,” 57, 58, 59, 60. Thaxter, C., 146. 1 Thoreau, H. D., 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 238. Ticknor, G., 102, 120. Timrod, H., 131. ! Trowbridge, J. T., 137. True Relation of Virginia , 14. Trumbull, J., 33, 34, 35, 36. Twain, Mark (see Clemens , S. L.)< Tyler, M. C., 162. Tylor, Royall, 61. Tyndall, J., 76. Unde Tom 7 s Cabin , 95, 133. Verne, J., 130. Verplanck, G. C., 58. Waddel, J., 33, 174. Walpole, H., 48. Ward, Artemus (see Browne , C. F.\ , 304 INDEX . Ward, N., 18. Ware, H., 74. Ware, H., Jr., 74, 75. Ware, W., 72, 74. Warner, C. D., 162. Warren, Gen., 81. Washington, G., 29, 30, 40, 44, 102, 125. Webster, D., 32, 62, 65, 66-69, 70, 71, 94, 98, 110, 215. Whipple, E. P., 117, 118. Whitaker, A., 13. White, M., 115. White, R. G., 162, 163. Whitman, Walt., 156, 159. Whitney, A, D. T., 138. Whittier, J. G., 18,65, 93, 96-100, 104, 107, 109, 114, 115, 116, 144, 146, 248. Wigglesworth, M., 18. Wilde, R. H., 131. Williams, R., 15. Willis, N. P., 46, 60, 161. Willson, F., 145. Wilson, Henry, 144. Winthrop, J., 17. Wirt, W., 28, 32, 33, 69, 176. Woodworth, S., 60. Woolson, C. F., 138. Worcester, J. E., 88. Wordsworth, W., 64, 75, 76. Zenobia, 83. THE END. II MODEL TEXT-BOOKS. Ccesar's Commentaries, First Six Books of ASneid, Virgil's