INITIAL STUDIES IN AMERICAN LETTERS

by

HENRY A. BEERS

New YorkChautauqua PressC. L. S. C. Department, 150 Fifth Avenue

1891

The required books of the C. L. S. C. Are recommended by a Council ofSix. It must, however, be understood that recommendation does notinvolve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of everyprinciple or doctrine contained in the book recommended. 

PREFACE. 

This volume is intended as a companion to the historical sketch ofEnglish literature, entitled _From Chaucer to Tennyson_, published lastyear for the Chautauqua Circle. In writing it I have followed the sameplan, aiming to present the subject in a sort of continuous essayrather than in the form of a "primer" or elementary manual. I have notundertaken to describe, or even to mention, every American author orbook of importance, but only those which seemed to me of mostsignificance. Nevertheless I believe that the sketch contains enoughdetail to make it of some use as a guide-book to our literature. Though meant to be mainly a history of American _belles-lettres_, itmakes some mention of historical and political writings, but hardly anyof philosophical, scientific, and technical works. 

A chronological rather than a topical order has been followed, althoughthe fact that our best literature is of recent growth has made itimpossible to adhere as closely to a chronological plan as in theEnglish sketch. In the reading courses appended to the differentchapters I have named a few of the most important authorities inAmerican literary history, such as Duyckinck, Tyler, Stedman, andRichardson. My thanks are due to the authors and publishers who havekindly allowed me the use of copyrighted matter for the appendix, especially to Mr. Park Godwin and Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. For thepassages from Bryant; to Messrs. A. O. Armstrong & Son for theselections from Poe; to the Rev. E. E. Hale and Messrs. RobertsBrothers for the extract from _The Man Without a Country_; to WaltWhitman for his two poems; and to Mr. Clemens and the AmericanPublishing Co. For the passage from _The Jumping Frog_. 

HENRY A. BEERS. 

CONTENTS. 

 CHAPTER I. THE COLONIAL PERIOD, 1607-1765

 CHAPTER II. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD, 1765-1815

 CHAPTER III. THE ERA OF NATIONAL EXPANSION, 1815-1837

 CHAPTER IV. THE CONCORD WRITERS, 1837-1861

 CHAPTER V. THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS, 1837-1861

 CHAPTER VI. LITERATURE IN THE CITIES, 1837-1861

 CHAPTER VII. LITERATURE SINCE 1861

 APPENDIX. 

INITIAL STUDIES IN AMERICAN LETTERS. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 

1607-1765. 

The writings of our colonial era have a much greater importance ashistory than as literature. It would be unfair to judge of theintellectual vigor of the English colonists in America by the booksthat they wrote; those "stern men with empires in their brains" hadmore pressing work to do than the making of books. The first settlers, indeed, were brought face to face with strange and excitingconditions--the sea, the wilderness, the Indians, the flora and faunaof a new world--things which seem stimulating to the imagination, andincidents and experiences which might have lent themselves easily topoetry or romance. Of all these they wrote back to England reportswhich were faithful and sometimes vivid, but which, upon the whole, hardly rise into the region of literature. "New England, " saidHawthorne, "was then in a state incomparably more picturesque than atpresent. " But to a contemporary that old New England of theseventeenth century doubtless seemed any thing but picturesque, filledwith grim, hard, work-day realities. The planters both of Virginia andMassachusetts were decimated by sickness and starvation, constantlythreatened by Indian Wars, and troubled by quarrels among themselvesand fears of disturbance from England. The wrangles between the royalgovernors and the House of Burgesses in the Old Dominion, and thetheological squabbles in New England, which fill our colonial records, are petty and wearisome to read of. At least, they would be so did wenot bear in mind to what imperial destinies those conflicts were slowlyeducating the little communities which had hardly yet secured afoothold on the edge of the raw continent. 

Even a century and a half after the Jamestown and Plymouth settlements, when the American plantations had grown strong and flourishing, andcommerce was building up large towns, and there were wealth andgenerous living and fine society, the "good old colony days when welived under the king, " had yielded little in the way of literature thatis of any permanent interest. There would seem to be something in therelation of a colony to the mother-country which dooms the thought andart of the former to a helpless provincialism. Canada and Australiaare great provinces, wealthier and more populous than the thirteencolonies at the time of their separation from England. They havecities whose inhabitants number hundreds of thousands, well-equippeduniversities, libraries, cathedrals, costly public buildings, all theoutward appliances of an advanced civilization; and yet what haveCanada and Australia contributed to British literature?

American literature had no infancy. That engaging _naïveté_ and thatheroic rudeness which give a charm to the early popular tales and songsof Europe find, of course, no counterpart on our soil. Instead ofemerging from the twilight of the past the first American writings wereproduced under the garish noon of a modern and learned age. Decrepitude rather than youthfulness is the mark of a colonialliterature. The poets, in particular, instead of finding a challengeto their imagination in the new life about them, are apt to go onimitating the cast-off literary fashions of the mother-country. America was settled by Englishmen who were contemporary with thegreatest names in English literature. Jamestown was planted in 1607, nine years before Shakespeare's death, and the hero of that enterprise, Captain John Smith, may not improbably have been a personalacquaintance of the great dramatist. "They have acted my fataltragedies on the stage, " wrote Smith. Many circumstances in _TheTempest_ were doubtless suggested by the wreck of the _Sea Venture_ on"the still vext Bermoothes, " as described by William Strachey in his_True Repertory of the Wrack and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates_, written at Jamestown, and published at London in 1610. Shakespeare'scontemporary, Michael Drayton, the poet of the _Polyolbion_, addresseda spirited valedictory ode to the three shiploads of "brave, heroicminds" who sailed from London in 1606 to colonize Virginia, an odewhich ended with the prophecy of a future American literature:

 "And as there plenty grows Of laurel every-where-- Apollo's sacred tree-- You it may see A poet's brows To crown, that may sing there. "

Another English poet, Samuel Daniel, the author of the _Civil Wars_, had also prophesied in a similar strain:

 "And who in time knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores . . . What worlds in the yet unformed Occident May come refined with accents that are ours?"

It needed but a slight movement in the balances of fate, and WalterRaleigh might have been reckoned among the poets of America. He wasone of the original promoters of the Virginia colony, and he madevoyages in person to Newfoundland and Guiana. And more unlikely thingshave happened than that when John Milton left Cambridge in 1632 heshould have been tempted to follow Winthrop and the colonists ofMassachusetts Bay, who had sailed two years before. Sir Henry Vane, the younger, who was afterward Milton's friend--

 "Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old"--

came over in 1635, and was for a short time governor of Massachusetts. These are idle speculations, and yet, when we reflect that OliverCromwell was on the point of embarking for America when he wasprevented by the king's officers, we may, for the nonce, "let our frailthoughts dally with false surmise, " and fancy by how narrow a chance_Paradise Lost_ missed being written in Boston. But, as a rule, themembers of the literary guild are not quick to emigrate. They like thefeeling of an old and rich civilization about them, a state of societywhich America has only begun to reach during the present century. 

Virginia and New England, says Lowell, were the "two great distributingcenters of the English race. " The men who colonized the countrybetween the Capes of Virginia were not drawn, to any large extent, fromthe literary or bookish classes in the old country. Many of the firstsettlers were gentlemen--too many, Captain Smith thought, for the goodof the plantation. Some among these were men of worth and spirit, "ofgood means and great parentage. " Such was, for example, George Percy, a younger brother of the Earl of Northumberland, who was one of theoriginal adventurers, and the author of _A Discourse of the Plantationof the Southern Colony of Virginia_, which contains a graphic narrativeof the fever and famine summer of 1607 at Jamestown. But many of thesegentlemen were idlers, "unruly gallants, packed thither by theirfriends to escape ill destinies, " dissipated younger sons, soldiers offortune, who came over after the gold which was supposed to abound inthe new country, and who spent their time in playing bowls and drinkingat the tavern as soon as there was any tavern. With these was asprinkling of mechanics and farmers, indented servants, and theon-scourings of the London streets, fruit of press-gangs and jaildeliveries, sent over to "work in the plantations. "

Nor were the conditions of life afterward in Virginia very favorable toliterary growth. The planters lived isolated on great estates whichhad water-fronts on the rivers that flow into the Chesapeake. Therethe tobacco, the chief staple of the country, was loaded directly uponthe trading vessels that tied up to the long, narrow wharves of theplantations. Surrounded by his slaves, and visited occasionally by adistant neighbor, the Virginia country gentleman lived a free andcareless life. He was fond of fox-hunting, horse-racing, andcock-fighting. There were no large towns, and the planters met eachother mainly on occasion of a county court or the assembling of theBurgesses. The court-house was the nucleus of social and politicallife in Virginia as the town-meeting was in New England. In such astate of society schools were necessarily few, and popular educationdid not exist. Sir William Berkeley, who was the royal governor of thecolony from 1641 to 1677, said, in 1670, "I thank God there are no freeschools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundredyears. " In the matter of printing this pious wish was well-nighrealized. The first press set up in the colony, about 1681, was soonsuppressed, and found no successor until the year 1729. From that dateuntil some ten years before the Revolution one printing-press answeredthe needs of Virginia, and this was under official control. Theearliest newspaper in the colony was the _Virginia Gazette_, established in 1736. 

In the absence of schools the higher education naturally languished. Some of the planters were taught at home by tutors, and others went toEngland and entered the universities. But these were few in number, and there was no college in the colony until more than half a centuryafter the foundation of Harvard in the younger province ofMassachusetts. The college of William and Mary was established atWilliamsburg chiefly by the exertions of the Rev. James Blair, a Scotchdivine, who was sent by the Bishop of London as "commissary" to theChurch in Virginia. The college received its charter in 1693, and heldits first commencement in 1700. It is perhaps significant of thedifference between the Puritans of New England and the so-called"Cavaliers" of Virginia, that while the former founded and supportedHarvard College in 1636, and Yale in 1701, of their own motion and attheir own expense, William and Mary received its endowment from thecrown, being provided for in part by a deed of lands and in part by atax of a penny a pound on all tobacco exported from the colony. Inreturn for this royal grant the college was to present yearly to theking two copies of Latin verse. It is reported of the young Virginiangentlemen who resorted to the new college that they brought theirplantation manners with them, and were accustomed to "keep race-horsesat the college, and bet at the billiard or other gaming-tables. "William and Mary College did a good work for the colony, and educatedsome of the great Virginians of the Revolutionary era, but it has neverbeen a large or flourishing institution, and has held no such relationto the intellectual development of its section as Harvard and Yale haveheld in the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Even after thefoundation of the University of Virginia, in which Jefferson took aconspicuous part, Southern youths were commonly sent to the North fortheir education, and at the time of the outbreak of the civil war therewas a large contingent of Southern students in several Northerncolleges, notably in Princeton and Yale. 

Naturally, the first books written in America were descriptions of thecountry and narratives of the vicissitudes of the infant settlements, which were sent home to be printed for the information of the Englishpublic and the encouragement of further immigration. Among books ofthis kind produced in Virginia the earliest and most noteworthy werethe writings of that famous soldier of fortune, Captain John Smith. The first of these was his _True Relation_, namely, "of suchoccurrences and accidents of note as hath happened in Virginia sincethe first planting of that colony, " printed at London in 1608. AmongSmith's other books the most important is perhaps his _General Historyof Virginia_ (London, 1624), a compilation of various narratives bydifferent hands, but passing under his name. Smith was a man of arestless and daring spirit, full of resource, impatient ofcontradiction, and of a somewhat vainglorious nature, with an appetitefor the marvelous and a disposition to draw the longbow. He had seenservice in many parts of the world, and his wonderful adventures lostnothing in the telling. It was alleged against him that the evidenceof his prowess rested almost entirely on his own testimony. Histruthfulness in essentials has not, perhaps, been successfullyimpugned, but his narratives have suffered by the embellishments withwhich he has colored them; and, in particular, the charming story ofPocahontas saving his life at the risk of her own--the one romance ofearly Virginian history--has passed into the realm of legend. 

Captain Smith's writings have small literary value apart from theinterest of the events which they describe and the diverting butforcible personality which they unconsciously display. They are therough-hewn records of a busy man of action, whose sword was mightierthan his pen. As Smith returned to England after two years inVirginia, and did not permanently cast in his lot with the settlementof which he had been for a time the leading spirit, he can hardly beclaimed as an American author. No more can Mr. George Sandys, who cameto Virginia in the train of Governor Wyat, in 1621, and completed hisexcellent metrical translation of Ovid on the banks of the James, inthe midst of the Indian massacre of 1622, "limned" as he writes "bythat imperfect light which was snatched from the hours of night andrepose, having wars and tumults to bring it to light instead of themuses. " Sandys went back to England for good probably as early as1625, and can, therefore, no more be reckoned as the first Americanpoet, on the strength of his paraphrase of the _Metamorphoses_, than hecan be reckoned the earliest Yankee inventor because he "introduced thefirst water-mill into America. "

The literature of colonial Virginia, and of the southern colonies whichtook their point of departure from Virginia, is almost wholly of thishistorical and descriptive kind. A great part of it is concerned withthe internal affairs of the province, such as "Bacon's Rebellion, " in1676, one of the most striking episodes in our ante-revolutionaryannals, and of which there exist a number of narratives, some of themanonymous, and only rescued from a manuscript condition a hundred yearsafter the event. Another part is concerned with the explorations ofnew territory. Such were the "Westover Manuscripts, " left by ColonelWilliam Byrd, who was appointed in 1729 one of the commissioners to fixthe boundary between Virginia and North Carolina, and gave an accountof the survey in his _History of the Dividing Line_, which was printedonly in 1841. Colonel Byrd is one of the most brilliant figures ofcolonial Virginia, and a type of the Old Virginia gentleman. He hadbeen sent to England for his education, where he was admitted to thebar of the Middle Temple, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, andformed an intimate friendship with Charles Boyle, the Earl of Orrery. He held many offices in the government of the colony, and founded thecities of Richmond and Petersburg. His estates were large, and atWestover--where he had one of the finest private libraries inAmerica--he exercised a baronial hospitality, blending the usualprofusion of plantation life with the elegance of a traveled scholarand "picked man of countries. " Colonel Byrd was rather an amateur inliterature. His _History of the Dividing Line_ is written with ajocularity which rises occasionally into real humor, and which gives tothe painful journey through the wilderness the air of a holidayexpedition. Similar in tone were his diaries of _A Progress to theMines_ and _A Journey to the Land of Eden_ in North Carolina. 

The first formal historian of Virginia was Robert Beverly, "a nativeand inhabitant of the place, " whose _History of Virginia_ was printedat London in 1705. Beverly was a rich planter and large slave-owner, who, being in London in 1703, was shown by his bookseller themanuscript of a forthcoming work, Oldmixon's _British Empire inAmerica_. Beverly was set upon writing his history by the inaccuraciesin this, and likewise because the province "has been so misrepresentedto the common people of England as to make them believe that theservants in Virginia are made to draw in cart and plow, and that thecountry turns all people black"--an impression which lingers still inparts of Europe. The most original portions of the book are those inwhich the author puts down his personal observations of the plants andanimals of the New World, and particularly the account of the Indians, to which his third book is devoted, and which is accompanied byvaluable plates. Beverly's knowledge of these matters was evidently atfirst hand, and his descriptions here are very fresh and interesting. The more strictly historical part of his work is not free fromprejudice and inaccuracy. A more critical, detailed, and impartial, but much less readable, work was William Stith's _History of the FirstDiscovery and Settlement of Virginia_, 1747, which brought the subjectdown only to the year 1624. Stith was a clergyman, and at one time aprofessor in William and Mary College. 

The Virginians were stanch royalists and churchmen. The Church ofEngland was established by law, and non-conformity was persecuted invarious ways. Three missionaries were sent to the colony in 1642 bythe Puritans of New England, two from Braintree, Massachusetts, and onefrom New Haven. They were not suffered to preach, but many resorted tothem in private houses, until, being finally driven out by fines andimprisonments, they took refuge in Catholic Maryland. The Virginiaclergy were not, as a body, very much of a force in education orliterature. Many of them, by reason of the scattering and dispersedcondition of their parishes, lived as domestic chaplains with thewealthier planters, and partook of their illiteracy and their passionfor gaming and hunting. Few of them inherited the zeal of AlexanderWhitaker, the "Apostle of Virginia, " who came over in 1611 to preach tothe colonists and convert the Indians, and who published in furtheranceof those ends _Good News from Virginia_, in 1613, three years beforehis death by drowning in the James River. 

The conditions were much more favorable for the production of aliterature in New England than in the southern colonies. The free andgenial existence of the "Old Dominion" had no counterpart among thesettlers of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, and the Puritans must havebeen rather unpleasant people to live with for persons of a differentway of thinking. But their intensity of character, their respect forlearning, and the heroic mood which sustained them through thehardships and dangers of their great enterprise are amply reflected intheir own writings. If these are not so much literature as the rawmaterials of literature, they have at least been fortunate in findinginterpreters among their descendants, and no modern Virginian has donefor the memory of the Jamestown planters what Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfellow, and others have done in casting the glamour of poetry andromance over the lives of the founders of New England. 

Cotton Mather, in his _Magnalia_, quotes the following passage from oneof those election sermons, delivered before the General Court ofMassachusetts, which formed for many years the great annualintellectual event of the colony:

"The question was often put unto our predecessors, _What went ye outinto the wilderness to see_? And the answer to it is not only tooexcellent but too notorious to be dissembled. . . . We came hitherbecause we would have our posterity settled under the pure and fulldispensations of the Gospel, defended by rulers that should be ofourselves. " The New England colonies were, in fact, theocracies. Their leaders were clergymen, or laymen whose zeal for the faith was nowhit inferior to that of the ministers themselves. Church and Statewere one. The freeman's oath was only administered to church members, and there was no place in the social system for unbelievers ordissenters. The pilgrim fathers regarded their transplantation to theNew World as an exile, and nothing is more touching in their writtenrecords than the repeated expressions of love and longing toward theold home which they had left, and even toward that Church of Englandfrom which they had sorrowfully separated themselves. It was not inany light or adventurous spirit that they faced the perils of the seaand the wilderness. "This howling wilderness, " "these ends of theearth, " "these goings down of the sun, " are some of the epithets whichthey constantly applied to the land of their exile. Nevertheless theyhad come to stay, and, unlike Smith and Percy and Sandys, the earlyhistorians and writers of New England cast in their lots permanentlywith the new settlements. A few, indeed, went back after 1640--Mathersays some ten or twelve of the ministers of the first "classis" orimmigration were among them--when the victory of the Puritanic party inParliament opened a career for them in England, and made their presencethere seem in some cases a duty. The celebrated Hugh Peters, forexample, who was afterward Oliver Cromwell's chaplain, and was beheadedafter the Restoration, went back in 1641, and in 1647 Nathaniel Ward, the minister of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and author of a quaint bookagainst toleration, entitled _The Simple Cobbler of Agawam_; written inAmerica and published shortly after its author's arrival in England. The civil war, too, put a stop to further emigration from England untilafter the Restoration in 1660. 

The mass of the Puritan immigration consisted of men of the middleclass, artisans and husbandmen, the most useful members of a newcolony. But their leaders were clergymen educated at the universities, and especially at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the great Puritancollege; their civil magistrates were also in great part gentlemen ofeducation and substance, like the elder Winthrop, who was learned inlaw, and Theophilus Eaton, first governor of New Haven, who was aLondon merchant of good estate. It is computed that there were in NewEngland during the first generation as many university graduates as inany community of equal population in the old country. Almost the firstcare of the settlers was to establish schools. Every town of fiftyfamilies was required by law to maintain a common school, and everytown of a hundred families a grammar or Latin school. In 1636, onlysixteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, Harvard College was founded at Newtown, whose name was thereuponchanged to Cambridge, the General Court held at Boston on September 8, 1630, having already advanced 400 pounds "by way of essay towards thebuilding of something to begin a college. " "An university, " saysMather, "which hath been to these plantations, for the good literaturethere cultivated, _sal Gentium_, . . . And a river without the streamswhereof these regions would have been mere unwatered places for thedevil. " By 1701 Harvard had put forth a vigorous offshoot, YaleCollege at New Haven, the settlers of New Haven and Connecticutplantations having increased sufficiently to need a college at theirown doors. A printing-press was set up at Cambridge in 1639, which wasunder the oversight of the university authorities, and afterward oflicensers appointed by the civil power. The press was no more free inMassachusetts than in Virginia, and that "liberty of unlicensedprinting" for which the Puritan Milton had pleaded in his_Areopagitica_, in 1644, was unknown in Puritan New England until sometwenty years before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. "TheFreeman's Oath" and an almanac were issued from the Cambridge press in1639, and in 1640 the first English book printed in America, acollection of the psalms in meter, made by various ministers, and knownas the _Bay Psalm Book_. The poetry of this version was worse, ifpossible, than that of Sternhold and Hopkins's famous rendering; but itis noteworthy that one of the principal translators was that devoted"Apostle to the Indians, " the Rev. John Eliot, who, in 1661-63, translated the Bible into the Algonquin tongue. Eliot hoped and toileda life-time for the conversion of those "salvages, " "tawnies, ""devil-worshipers, " for whom our early writers have usually nothing butbad words. They have been destroyed instead of converted; but his (soentitled) _Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God naneeswe NukkoneTestament kah wonk Wusku Testament_--the first Bible printed inAmerica--remains a monument of missionary zeal and a work of greatvalue to students of the Indian languages. 

A modern writer has said that, to one looking back on the history ofold New England, it seems as though the sun shone but dimly there, andthe landscape was always dark and wintry. Such is the impression whichone carries away from the perusal of books like Bradford's andWinthrop's Journals, or Mather's _Wonders of the Invisible World_--animpression of gloom, of flight and cold, of mysterious fears besiegingthe infant settlements scattered in a narrow fringe "between thegroaning forest and the shore. " The Indian terror hung over NewEngland for more than half a century, or until the issue of KingPhilip's War, in 1670, relieved the colonists of any danger of ageneral massacre. Added to this were the perplexities caused by theearnest resolve of the settlers to keep their New-England Eden freefrom the intrusion of the serpent in the shape of heretical sects inreligion. The Puritanism of Massachusetts was an orthodox andconservative Puritanism. The later and more grotesque out-crops of themovement in the old England found no toleration in the new. But theserefugees for conscience' sake were compelled in turn to persecuteAntinomians, Separatists, Familists, Libertines, Anti-pedobaptists, andlater, Quakers, and still later, Enthusiasts, who swarmed into theirprecincts and troubled the churches with "prophesyings" and novelopinions. Some of those were banished, others were flogged orimprisoned, and a few were put to death. Of the exiles the mostnoteworthy was Roger Williams, an impetuous, warm-hearted man, who wasso far in advance of his age as to deny the power of the civilmagistrate in cases of conscience, or who, in other words, maintainedthe modern doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Williamswas driven away from the Massachusetts colony--where he had beenminister of the church at Salem--and with a few followers fled into thesouthern wilderness and settled at Providence. There, and in theneighboring plantation of Rhode Island, for which he obtained acharter, he established his patriarchal rule and gave freedom ofworship to all comers. Williams was a prolific writer on theologicalsubjects, the most important of his writings being, perhaps, his_Bloody Tenent of Persecution_, 1644, and a supplement to the samecalled out by a reply to the former work from the pen of Mr. JohnCotton, minister of the First Church at Boston, entitled _The BloodyTenent Washed and made White in the Blood of the Lamb_. Williams wasalso a friend to the Indians, whose lands, he thought, should not betaken from them without payment, and he anticipated Eliot by writing, in 1643, a _Key into the Language of America_. Although at odds withthe theology of Massachusetts Bay, Williams remained in correspondencewith Winthrop and others in Boston, by whom he was highly esteemed. Hevisited England in 1643 and 1652, and made the acquaintance of JohnMilton. 

Besides the threat of an Indian war and their anxious concern for thepurity of the Gospel in their churches, the colonists were haunted bysuperstitious forebodings of the darkest kind. It seemed to them thatSatan, angered by the setting up of the kingdom of the saints inAmerica, had "come down in great wrath, " and was present among them, sometimes even in visible shape, to terrify and tempt. Specialprovidences and unusual phenomena, like earth quakes, mirages, and thenorthern lights, are gravely recorded by Winthrop and Mather and othersas portents of supernatural persecutions. Thus Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, the celebrated leader of the Familists, having, according to rumor, been delivered of a monstrous birth, the Rev. John Cotton, in openassembly, at Boston, upon a lecture day, "thereupon gathered that itmight signify her error in denying inherent righteousness. " "Therewill be an unusual range of the devil among us, " wrote Mather, "alittle before the second coming of our Lord. The evening wolves willbe much abroad when we are near the evening of the world. " This beliefculminated in the horrible witchcraft delusion at Salem in 1692, that"spectral puppet play, " which, beginning with the malicious pranks of afew children who accused certain uncanny old women and other persons ofmean condition and suspected lives of having tormented them with magic, gradually drew into its vortex victims of the highest character, andresulted in the judicial murder of over nineteen people. Many of thepossessed pretended to have been visited by the apparition of a littleblack man, who urged them to inscribe their names in a red book whichhe carried--a sort of muster-roll of those who had forsworn God'sservice for the devil's. Others testified to having been present atmeetings of witches in the forest. It is difficult now to read withoutcontempt the "evidence" which grave justices and learned divinesconsidered sufficient to condemn to death men and women of unblemishedlives. It is true that the belief in witchcraft was general at thattime all over the civilized world, and that sporadic cases ofwitch-burnings had occurred in different parts of America and Europe. Sir Thomas Browne, in his _Religio Medici_, 1635, affirmed his beliefin witches, and pronounced those who doubted of them "a sort ofatheist. " But the superstition came to a head in the Salem trials andexecutions, and was the more shocking from the general high level ofintelligence in the community in which these were held. It would bewell if those who lament the decay of "faith" would remember whatthings were done in New England in the name of faith less than twohundred years ago. It is not wonderful that, to the MassachusettsPuritans of the seventeenth century, the mysterious forest held nobeautiful suggestion; to them it was simply a grim and hideouswilderness, whose dark aisles were the ambush of prowling savages andthe rendezvous of those other "devil-worshipers" who celebrated there akind of vulgar Walpurgis night. 

The most important of original sources for the history of thesettlement of New England are the journals of William Bradford, firstgovernor of Plymouth, and John Winthrop, the second governor ofMassachusetts, which hold a place corresponding to the writings ofCaptain John Smith in the Virginia colony, but are much more sober andtrustworthy. Bradford's _History of Plymouth Plantation_ covers theperiod from 1620 to 1646. The manuscript was used by later annalistsbut remained unpublished, as a whole, until 1855, having been lostduring the War of the Revolution and recovered long afterward inEngland. Winthrop's Journal, or _History of New England_, begun onshipboard in 1630, and extending to 1649, was not published entireuntil 1826. It is of equal authority with Bradford's, and perhaps, onthe whole the more important of the two, as the colony of MassachusettsBay, whose history it narrates, greatly outwent Plymouth in wealth andpopulation, though not in priority of settlement. The interest ofWinthrop's Journal lies in the events that it records rather than inany charm in the historian's manner of recording them. His style ispragmatic, and some of the incidents which he gravely notes are trivialto the modern mind, though instructive as to our forefathers' way ofthinking. For instance, of the year 1632: "At Watertown there was (inthe view of divers witnesses) a great combat between a mouse and asnake, and after a long fight the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor of Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing ofit, gave this interpretation: that the snake was the devil, the mousewas a poor, contemptible people, which God had brought hither, whichshould overcome Satan here and dispossess him of his kingdom. " Thereader of Winthrop's Journal comes every-where upon hints which theimagination has since shaped into poetry and romance. The germs ofmany of Longfellow's _New England Tragedies_, of Hawthorne's _Maypoleof Merrymount_, and _Endicott's Red Cross_, and of Whittier's _JohnUnderhill_ and _The Familists' Hymn_ are all to be found in some dry, brief entry of the old Puritan diarist. "Robert Cole, having been oftpunished for drunkenness, was now ordered to wear a red D about hisneck for a year, " to wit, the year 1633, and thereby gave occasion tothe greatest American romance, _The Scarlet Letter_. The famousapparition of the phantom ship in New Haven harbor, "upon the top ofthe poop a man standing with one hand akimbo under his left side, andin his right hand a sword stretched out toward the sea, " was firstchronicled by Winthrop under the year 1648. This meteorologicalphenomenon took on the dimensions of a full-grown myth some forty yearslater, as related, with many embellishments, by Rev. James Pierpont, ofNew Haven, in a letter to Cotton Mather. Winthrop put great faith inspecial providences, and among other instances narrates, not without acertain grim satisfaction, how "the _Mary Rose_, a ship of Bristol, ofabout 200 tons, " lying before Charleston, was blown in pieces with herown powder, being twenty-one barrels, wherein the judgment of Godappeared, "for the master and company were many of them profanescoffers at us and at the ordinances of religion here. " Without anyeffort at dramatic portraiture or character-sketching, Winthrop managedin all simplicity, and by the plain relation of facts, to leave a clearimpression of many prominent figures in the first Massachusettsimmigration. In particular there gradually arises from the entries inhis diary a very distinct and diverting outline of Captain JohnUnderhill, celebrated in Whittier's poem. He was one of the fewprofessional soldiers who came over with the Puritan fathers, such asJohn Mason, the hero of the Pequot War, and Miles Standish, whose_Courtship_ Longfellow sang. He had seen service in the Low Countries, and in pleading the privilege of his profession "he insisted much uponthe liberty which all States do allow to military officers for freespeech, etc. , and that himself had spoken sometimes as freely to CountNassau. " Captain Underhill gave the colony no end of trouble, both byhis scandalous living and his heresies in religion. Having beenseduced into Familistical opinions by Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who wasbanished for her beliefs, he was had up before the General Court andquestioned, among other points, as to his own report of the manner ofhis conversion. "He had lain under a spirit of bondage and a legal wayfor years, and could get no assurance, till, at length, as he wastaking a pipe of tobacco, the Spirit set home an absolute promise offree grace with such assurance and joy as he never since doubted of hisgood estate, neither should he, though he should fall into sin. . . . The Lord's day following he made a speech in the assembly, showing thatas the Lord was pleased to convert Paul as he was in persecuting, etc. , so he might manifest himself to him as he was taking the moderate useof the creature called tobacco. " The gallant captain, being banishedthe colony, betook himself to the falls of the Piscataquack (Exeter, N. H. ), where the Rev. John Wheelwright, another adherent of Mrs. Hutchinson, had gathered a congregation. Being made governor of thisplantation, Underhill sent letters to the Massachusetts magistrates, breathing reproaches and imprecations of vengeance. But meanwhile itwas discovered that he had been living in adultery at Boston with ayoung woman whom he had seduced, the wife of a cooper, and the captainwas forced to make public confession, which he did with great unctionand in a manner highly dramatic. "He came in his worst clothes (beingaccustomed to take great pride in his bravery and neatness), without aband, in a foul linen cap, and pulled close to his eyes, and standingupon a form, he did, with many deep sighs and abundance of tears, layopen his wicked course. " There is a lurking humor in the graveWinthrop's detailed account of Underhill's doings. Winthrop's ownpersonality comes out well in his Journal. He was a born leader ofmen, a _conditor imperii_, just, moderate, patient, wise; and hisnarrative gives, upon the whole, a favorable impression of the generalprudence and fair-mindedness of the Massachusetts settlers in theirdealings with one another, with the Indians, and with the neighboringplantations. 

Considering our forefathers' errand and calling into this wilderness, it is not strange that their chief literary staples were sermons andtracts in controversial theology. Multitudes of these were written andpublished by the divines of the first generation, such as John Cotton, Thomas Shepard, John Norton, Peter Bulkley, and Thomas Hooker, thefounder of Hartford, of whom it was finely said that "when he was doinghis Master's business he would put a king into his pocket. " Nor weretheir successors in the second or the third generation any lessindustrious and prolific. They rest from their labors and their worksdo follow them. Their sermons and theological treatises are notliterature: they are for the most part dry, heavy, and dogmatic, butthey exhibit great learning, logical acuteness, and an earnestnesswhich sometimes rises into eloquence. The pulpit ruled New England, and the sermon was the great intellectual engine of the time. Theserious thinking of the Puritans was given almost exclusively toreligion; the other world was all their art. The daily secular eventsof life, the aspects of nature, the vicissitude of the seasons, wereimportant enough to find record in print only in so far as theymanifested God's dealings with his people. So much was the sermondepended upon to furnish literary food that it was the general customof serious-minded laymen to take down the words of the discourse intheir note-books. Franklin, in his _Autobiography_, describes this asthe constant habit of his grandfather, Peter Folger; and Mather, in hislife of the elder Winthrop, says that "tho' he wrote not after thepreacher, yet such was his _attention_ and such his _retention_ inhearing, that he repeated unto his family the sermons which he hadheard in the congregation. " These discourses were commonly of greatlength; twice, or sometimes thrice, the pulpit hour-glass was silentlyinverted while the orator pursued his theme even unto "fourteenthly. "

The book which best sums up the life and thought of this old NewEngland of the seventeenth century is Cotton Mather's _Magnalia ChristiAmericana_. Mather was by birth a member of that clerical aristocracywhich developed later into Dr. Holmes's "Brahmin Caste of New England. "His maternal grandfather was John Cotton. His father was IncreaseMather, the most learned divine of his generation in New England, minister of the North Church of Boston, President of Harvard College, and author, _inter alia_, of that characteristically Puritan book, _AnEssay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences_. Cotton Matherhimself was a monster of erudition and a prodigy of diligence. He wasgraduated from Harvard at fifteen. He ordered his daily life andconversation by a system of minute observances. He was a book-worm, whose life was spent between his library and his pulpit, and hispublished works number upward of three hundred and eighty. Of thesethe most important is the _Magnalia_, 1702, an ecclesiastical historyof New England from 1620 to 1698, divided into seven parts: I. Antiquities; II. Lives of the Governors; III. Lives of Sixty FamousDivines; IV. A History of Harvard College, with biographies of itseminent graduates; V. Acts and Monuments of the Faith; VI. WonderfulProvidences; VII. The Wars of the Lord--that is, an account of theAfflictions and Disturbances of the Churches and the Conflicts with theIndians. The plan of the work thus united that of Fuller's _Worthiesof England_ and _Church History_ with that of Wood's _AthenaeOxonienses_ and Fox's _Book of Martyrs_. 

Mather's prose was of the kind which the English Commonwealth writersused. He was younger by a generation than Dryden; but, as literaryfashions are slower to change in a colony than in the mother-country, that nimble English which Dryden and the Restoration essayistsintroduced had not yet displaced in New England the older manner. Mather wrote in the full and pregnant style of Taylor, Milton, Brown, Fuller, and Burton, a style ponderous with learning and stiff withallusions, digressions, conceits, anecdotes, and quotations from theGreek and the Latin. A page of the _Magnalia_ is almost as richlymottled with italics as one from the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, and thequaintness which Mather caught from his favorite Fuller disports itselfin textual pun and marginal anagram and the fantastic sub-titles of hisbooks and chapters. He speaks of Thomas Hooker as having "_angled_many scores of souls into the kingdom of heaven, " anagrammatizes Mrs. Hutchinson's surname into "the non-such;" and having occasion to speakof Mr. Urian Oakes's election to the presidency of Harvard College, enlarges upon the circumstance as follows:

"We all know that _Britain_ knew nothing more famous than their ancientsect of DRUIDS; the philosophers, whose order, they say, was institutedby one _Samothes_, which is in English as much as to say, an heavenlyman. The _Celtic_ name, _Deru_, for an Oak was that from whence theyreceived their denomination; as at this very day the _Welch_ call thistree _Drew_, and this order of men _Derwyddon_. But there are no smallantiquaries who derive this oaken religion and philosophy from the_Oaks of Mamre_, where the Patriarch _Abraham_ had as well a dwellingas an _altar_. That _Oaken-Plain_ and the eminent OAK under which_Abraham_ lodged was extant in the days of _Constantine_, as _Isidore_, _Jerom_, and _Sozomen_ have assured us. Yea, there are shrewdprobabilities that _Noah_ himself had lived in this very _Oak-plain_before him; for this very place was called _Ogge_ [see Transcriber'sNote #1 at end of chapter], which was the name of _Noah_, so styledfrom the _Oggyan_ (_subcineritiis panibus_) sacrifices, which he diduse to offer in this renowned _Grove_. And it was from this examplethat the ancients, and particularly that the Druids of the nations, chose _oaken_ retirements for their studies. Reader, let us now, uponanother account, behold the students of _Harvard College_, as arendezvous of happy _Druids_, under the influences of so rare apresident. But, alas! our joy must be short-lived, for on _July_ 25, 1681, the stroke of a sudden death felled the _tree_, "Qui tantum inter caput extulit omnes Quantum lenta solent inter viberna cypressi. 

"Mr. _Oakes_ thus being transplanted into the better world thepresidentship was immediately tendered unto _Mr. Increase Mather_. "

This will suffice as an example of the bad taste and laborious pedantrywhich disfigured Mather's writing. In its substance the book is aperfect thesaurus; and inasmuch as nothing is unimportant in thehistory of the beginnings of such a nation as this is and is destinedto be, the _Magnalia_ will always remain a valuable and interestingwork. Cotton Mather, born in 1663, was of the second generation ofAmericans, his grandfather being of the immigration, but his father anative of Dorchester, Mass. A comparison of his writings and of thewritings of his contemporaries with the works of Bradford, Winthrop, Hooker, and others of the original colonists, shows that the simple andheroic faith of the Pilgrims had hardened into formalism and doctrinalrigidity. The leaders of the Puritan exodus, notwithstanding theirintolerance of errors in belief, were comparatively broad-minded men. They were sharers in a great national movement, and they came over whentheir cause was warm with the glow of martyrdom and on the eve of itscoming triumph at home. After the Restoration, in 1660, the currentsof national feeling no longer circulated so freely through this distantmember of the body politic, and thought in America became moreprovincial. The English dissenters, though socially at a disadvantageas compared with the Church of England, had the great benefit of livingat the center of national life, and of feeling about them the pressureof vast bodies of people who did not think as they did. In NewEngland, for many generations, the dominant sect had things all its ownway--a condition of things which is not healthy for any sect or party. Hence Mather and the divines of his time appear in their writings verymuch like so many Puritan bishops, jealous of their prerogatives, magnifying their apostolate, and careful to maintain their authorityover the laity. Mather had an appetite for the marvelous, and took aleading part in the witchcraft trials, of which he gave an account inhis _Wonders of the Invisible World_, 1693. To the quaint pages of the_Magnalia_ our modern authors have resorted as to a collection ofromances or fairy tales. Whittier, for example, took from thence thesubject of his poem _The Garrison of Cape Anne_; and Hawthorne embodiedin _Grandfather's Chair_ the most elaborate of Mather's biographies. This was the life of Sir William Phipps, who, from being a poorshepherd boy in his native province of Maine, rose to be the royalgovernor of Massachusetts, and the story of whose wonderful adventuresin raising the freight of a Spanish ship, sunk on a reef near Port dela Plata, reads less like sober fact than like some ancient fable, withtalk of the Spanish main, bullion, and plate and jewels and "pieces ofeight. "

Of Mather's generation was Samuel Sewall, Chief-Justice ofMassachusetts, a singularly gracious and venerable figure, who isintimately known through his Diary, kept from 1673 to 1729. This hasbeen compared with the more famous diary of Samuel Pepys, which itresembles in its confidential character and the completeness of itsself-revelation, but to which it is as much inferior in historicinterest as "the petty province here" was inferior in political andsocial importance to "Britain far away. " For the most part it is achronicle of small beer, the diarist jotting down the minutiae of hisdomestic life and private affairs, even to the recording of such hapsas this: "March 23, I had my hair cut by G. Barret. " But it alsoaffords instructive glimpses of public events, such as King Philip'sWar, the Quaker troubles, the English Revolution of 1688, etc. Itbears about the same relation to New England history at the close ofthe seventeenth century as Bradford's and Winthrop's Journals bear tothat of the first generation. Sewall was one of the justices whopresided at the trial of the Salem witches; but for the part which hetook in that wretched affair he made such atonement as was possible, byopen confession of his mistake and his remorse in the presence of theChurch. Sewall was one of the first writers against African slavery, in his brief tract, _The Selling of Joseph_, printed at Boston in 1700. His _Phenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica_, a mystical interpretation ofprophecies concerning the New Jerusalem, which he identifies withAmerica, is remembered only because Whittier, in his _Prophecy ofSamuel Sewall_, has paraphrased one poetic passage which shows a lovingobservation of nature very rare in our colonial writers. 

Of poetry, indeed, or, in fact, of pure literature, in the narrowersense--that is, of the imaginative representation of life--there waslittle or none in the colonial period. There were no novels, no plays, no satires, and--until the example of the _Spectator_ had begun to workon this side the water--no experiments even at the lighter forms ofessay-writing, character-sketches, and literary criticism. There wasverse of a certain kind, but the most generous stretch of the termwould hardly allow it to be called poetry. Many of the early divinesof New England relieved their pens, in the intervals of sermon-writing, of epigrams, elegies, eulogistic verses, and similar grave triflesdistinguished by the crabbed wit of the so-called "metaphysical poets, "whose manner was in fashion when the Puritans left England; the mannerof Donne and Cowley, and those darlings of the New-English muse, the_Emblems_ of Quarles and the _Divine Week_ of Du Bartas, as translatedby Sylvester. The _Magnalia_ contains a number of these things inLatin and English, and is itself well bolstered with complimentaryintroductions in meter by the author's friends. For example:

 COTTONIUS MATHERUS. 

 ANAGRAM. 

 _Tuos Tecum Ornasti_. 

 "While thus the dead in thy rare pages rise _Thine, with thyself thou dost immortalize_. To view the odds thy learned lives invite 'Twixt Eleutherian and Edomite. But all succeeding ages shall despair A fitting monument for thee to _rear_. Thy own rich pen (peace, silly Momus, peace!) Hath given them a lasting _writ of ease_. "

The epitaphs and mortuary verses were especially ingenious in thematter of puns, anagrams, and similar conceits. The death of the Rev. Samuel Stone, of Hartford, afforded an opportunity of this sort not tobe missed, and his threnodist accordingly celebrated him as a"whetstone, " a "loadstone, " an "Ebenezer"--

 "A stone for kingly David's use so fit As would not fail Goliath's front to hit, " etc. 

The most characteristic, popular, and widely circulated poem ofcolonial New England was Michael Wigglesworth's _Day of Doom_ (1663), akind of doggerel _Inferno_, which went through nine editions, and "wasthe solace, " says Lowell, "of every fireside, the flicker of thepine-knots by which it was conned perhaps adding a livelier relish toits premonitions of eternal combustion. " Wigglesworth had not thetechnical equipment of a poet. His verse is sing-song, his languagerude and monotonous, and the lurid horrors of his material hell aremore likely to move mirth than fear in a modern reader. But there arean unmistakable vigor of imagination and a sincerity of belief in hisgloomy poem which hold it far above contempt, and easily account forits universal currency among a people like the Puritans. One stanzahas been often quoted for its grim concession to unregenerate infantsof "the easiest room in hell"--a _limbus infantum_ which even Origenneed not have scrupled at. 

The most authoritative expounder of New England Calvinism was JonathanEdwards (1703-58), a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale, whowas minister for more than twenty years over the church in Northampton, Mass. , afterward missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, and at the timeof his death had just been inaugurated president of Princeton College. By virtue of his _Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will_, 1754, Edwardsholds rank as the subtlest metaphysician of his age. This treatise wascomposed to justify, on philosophical grounds, the Calvinisticdoctrines of fore-ordination and election by grace, though itsarguments are curiously coincident with those of the scientificnecessitarians, whose conclusions are as far asunder from Edwards's "asfrom the center thrice to the utmost pole. " His writings belong totheology rather than to literature, but there is an intensity and aspiritual elevation about them, apart from the profundity and acutenessof the thought, which lift them here and there into the finer ether ofpurely emotional or imaginative art. He dwelt rather upon the terrorsthan the comfort of the word, and his chosen themes were the dogmas ofpredestination, original sin, total depravity, and eternal punishment. The titles of his sermons are significant: _Men Naturally God'sEnemies_, _Wrath upon the Wicked to the Uttermost_, _The FinalJudgment_, etc. "A natural man, " he wrote in the first of thesediscourses, "has a heart like the heart of a devil. . . . The heart ofa natural man is as destitute of love to God as a dead, stiff, coldcorpse is of vital heat. " Perhaps the most famous of Edwards's sermonswas _Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God_, preached at Enfield, Conn. , July 8, 1741, "at a time of great awakenings, " and upon the ominoustext, _Their foot shall slide in due time_. "The God that holds youover the pit of hell, " runs an oft-quoted passage from this powerfuldenunciation of the wrath to come, "much as one holds a spider or someloathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfullyprovoked. . . . You are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyesthan the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. . . . You hang by aslender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing aboutit. . . . If you cry to God to pity you he will be so far from pityingyou in your doleful case that he will only tread you under foot. . . . He will crush out your blood and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkledon his garments so as to stain all his raiment. " But Edwards was arapt soul, possessed with the love as well as the fear of the God, andthere are passages of sweet and exalted feeling in his _TreatiseConcerning Religious Affections_, 1746. Such is his portrait of SarahPierpont, "a young lady in New Haven, " who afterward became his wifeand who "will sometimes go about from place to place singing sweetly, and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in thefields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible alwaysconversing with her. " Edwards's printed works number thirty-sixtitles. A complete edition of them in ten volumes was published in1829 by his great grandson, Sereno Dwight. The memoranda fromEdwards's note-books, quoted by his editor and biographer, exhibit aremarkable precocity. Even as a school-boy and a college student hehad made deep guesses in physics as well as metaphysics, and, as mighthave been predicted of a youth of his philosophical insight and idealcast of mind, he had early anticipated Berkeley in denying theexistence of matter. In passing from Mather to Edwards we step fromthe seventeenth to the eighteenth century. There is the samedifference between them in style and turn of thought as between Miltonand Locke, or between Fuller and Bryden. The learned digressions, thewitty conceits, the perpetual interlarding of the text with scraps ofLatin, have fallen off, even as the full-bottomed wig and the clericalgown and bands have been laid aside for the undistinguishing dress ofthe modern minister. In Edwards's English all is simple, precise, direct, and business-like. 

Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), who was strictly contemporary withEdwards, was a contrast to him in every respect. As Edwards representsthe spirituality and other-worldliness of Puritanism, Franklin standsfor the worldly and secular side of American character, and heillustrates the development of the New England Englishman into themodern Yankee. Clear rather than subtle, without ideality or romanceor fineness of emotion or poetic lift, intensely practical andutilitarian, broad-minded, inventive, shrewd, versatile, Franklin'ssturdy figure became typical of his time and his people. He was thefirst and the only man of letters in colonial America who acquired acosmopolitan fame and impressed his characteristic Americanism upon themind of Europe. He was the embodiment of common sense and of theuseful virtues, with the enterprise but without the nervousness of hismodern compatriots, uniting the philosopher's openness of mind to thesagacity and quickness of resource of the self-made business man. Hewas representative also of his age, an age of _aufklärung_, _eclaircissement_, or "clearing up. " By the middle of the eighteenthcentury a change had taken place in American society. Trade hadincreased between the different colonies; Boston, New York, andPhiladelphia were considerable towns; democratic feeling was spreading;over forty newspapers were published in America at the outbreak of theRevolution; politics claimed more attention than formerly, and theologyless. With all this intercourse and mutual reaction of the variouscolonies upon one another, the isolated theocracy of New Englandnaturally relaxed somewhat of its grip on the minds of the laity. WhenFranklin was a printer's apprentice in Boston, setting type on hisbrother's _New England Courant_, the fourth American newspaper, he gothold of an odd volume of the _Spectator_, and formed his style uponAddison, whose manner he afterward imitated in his _Busy-Body_ papersin the Philadelphia _Weekly Mercury_. He also read Locke and theEnglish deistical writers, Collins and Shaftesbury, and became himselfa deist and free-thinker; and subsequently when practicing his trade inLondon, in 1724-26, he made the acquaintance of Dr. Mandeville, authorof the _Fable of the Bees_, at a pale-ale house in Cheapside, called"The Horns, " where the famous free-thinker presided over a club of witsand boon companions. Though a native of Boston, Franklin is identifiedwith Philadelphia, whither he arrived in 1723, a runaway 'prentice boy, "whose stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shillingin copper. " The description in his _Autobiography_ of his walking upMarket Street munching a loaf of bread, and passing his future wife, standing on her father's doorstep, has become almost as familiar as theanecdote about Whittington and his cat. 

It was in the practical sphere that Franklin was greatest, as anoriginator and executor of projects for the general welfare. The listof his public services is almost endless. He organized thePhiladelphia fire department and street-cleaning service, and thecolonial postal system which grew into the United States Post OfficeDepartment. He started the Philadelphia public library, the AmericanPhilosophical Society, the University of Pennsylvania, and the firstAmerican magazine, _The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle_; sothat he was almost singly the father of whatever intellectual life thePennsylvania colony could boast. In 1754, when commissioners from thecolonies met at Albany, Franklin proposed a plan, which was adopted, for the union of all the colonies under one government. But all thesethings, as well as his mission to England in 1757, on behalf of thePennsylvania Assembly in its dispute with the proprietaries; his sharein the Declaration of Independence--of which he was one of thesigners--and his residence in France as embassador of the UnitedColonies, belong to the political history of the country; to thehistory of American science belong his celebrated experiments inelectricity; and his benefits to mankind in both of these departmentswere aptly summed up in the famous epigram of the French statesmanTurgot:

 "_Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyranniis_. "

Franklin's success in Europe was such as no American had yet achieved, as few Americans since him have achieved. Hume and Voltaire were amonghis acquaintances and his professed admirers. In France he was fairlyidolized, and when he died Mirabeau announced, "The genius which hasfreed America and poured a flood of light over Europe has returned tothe bosom of the Divinity. "

Franklin was a great man, but hardly a great writer, though as awriter, too, he had many admirable and some great qualities. Amongthese were the crystal clearness and simplicity of his style. His morestrictly literary performances, such as his essays after the_Spectator_, hardly rise above mediocrity, and are neither better norworse than other imitations of Addison. But in some of his lighterbagatelles there are a homely wisdom and a charming playfulness whichhave won them enduring favor. Such are his famous story of the_Whistle_, his _Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout_, his letters toMadame Helvetius, and his verses entitled _Paper_. The greater portionof his writings consists of papers on general politics, commerce, andpolitical economy, contributions to the public questions of his day. These are of the nature of journalism rather than of literature, andmany of them were published in his newspaper, the _PennsylvaniaGazette_, the medium through which for many years he most stronglyinfluenced American opinion. The most popular of his writings were his_Autobiography_ and _Poor Richard's Almanac_. The former of these wasbegun in 1771, resumed in 1788, but never completed. It has remainedthe most widely current book in our colonial literature. _PoorRichard's Almanac_, begun in 1732 and continued for about twenty-fiveyears, had an annual circulation of ten thousand copies. It was filledwith proverbial sayings in prose and verse, inculcating the virtues ofindustry, honesty, and frugality. [1] Some of these were original withFranklin, others were selected from the proverbial wisdom of the ages, but a new force was given them by pungent turns of expression. PoorRichard's saws were such as these: "Little strokes fell great oaks;""Three removes are as bad as a fire;" "Early to bed and early to risemakes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise;" "Never leave that tillto-morrow which you can do to-day;" "What maintains one vice wouldbring up two children;" "It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright. "

Now and then there are truths of a higher kind than these in Franklin, and Sainte-Beuve, the great French critic, quotes, as an example of hisoccasional finer moods, the saying, "Truth and sincerity have a certaindistinguishing native luster about them which cannot be counterfeited;they are like fire and flame that cannot be painted. " But the sage whoinvented the Franklin stove had no disdain of small utilities; and ingeneral the last word of his philosophy is well expressed in a passageof his _Autobiography_: "Human felicity is produced not so much bygreat pieces of good fortune, that seldom happen, as by littleadvantages that occur every day; thus, if you teach a poor young man toshave himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more tothe happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. "

1. Captain John Smith. _A True Relation of Virginia_, Deane's edition. Boston: 1866. 

2. Cotton Mather. _Magnalia Christi Americana_. Hartford: 1820. 

3. Samuel Sewall. _Diary_. Massachusetts Historical Collections. Fifth Series. Vols. V, vi, and vii. Boston: 1878. 

4. Jonathan Edwards. _Eight Sermons on Various Occasions_. Vol. Viiof Edwards's Works. Edited by Sereno Dwight. New York: 1829. 

5. Benjamin Franklin. _Autobiography_. Edited by John Bigelow. Philadelphia: 1869. [J. B. Lippincott & Co. ]

6. _Essays and Bagatelles_. Vol. Ii of Franklin's Works. Edited byJared Sparks. Boston: 1836. 

7. Moses Coit Tyler. _A History of American Literature_. 1607-1765. New York: 1878. [G. P. Putnam's Sons. ]

[1]_The Way to Wealth, Plan for Saving One Hundred Thousand Pounds, Rules of Health, Advice to a Young Tradesman, The Way to Make MoneyPlenty in Every Man's Pocket_, etc. 

[Transcriber's Note: The word "Ogge" was transliterated from the Greekcharacters Omicron, gamma, gamma, eta. ]

CHAPTER II. 

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 

1765-1815. 

It will be convenient to treat the fifty years which elapsed betweenthe meeting at New York, in 1765, of a Congress of delegates from ninecolonies to protest against the Stamp Act, and the close of the secondwar with England, in 1815, as, for literary purposes, a single period. This half-century was the formative era of the American nation. Historically, it is divisible into the years of revolution and theyears of construction. But the men who led the movement forindependence were also, in great part, the same who guided in shapingthe Constitution of the new republic, and the intellectual impress ofthe whole period is one and the same. The character of the age was asdistinctly political as that of the colonial era--in New England atleast--was theological; and literature must still continue to borrowits interest from history. Pure literature, or what, for want of abetter term, we call _belles lettres_, was not born in America untilthe nineteenth century was well under way. It is true that theRevolution had its humor, its poetry, and even its fiction; but thesewere strictly for the home market. They hardly penetrated theconsciousness of Europe at all, and are not to be compared with thecontemporary work of English authors like Cowper and Sheridan andBurke. Their importance for us to-day is rather antiquarian thanliterary, though the most noteworthy of them will be mentioned in duecourse in the present chapter. It is also true that one or two ofIrving's early books fall within the last years of the period now underconsideration. But literary epochs overlap one another at the edges, and these writings may best be postponed to a subsequent chapter. 

Among the most characteristic products of the intellectual stir thatpreceded and accompanied the Revolutionary movement were the speechesof political orators like Samuel Adams, James Otis, and Josiah Quincy, in Massachusetts, and Patrick Henry in Virginia. Oratory is the art ofa free people, and as in the forensic assemblies of Greece and Rome andin the Parliament of Great Britain, so in the conventions andcongresses of Revolutionary America it sprang up and flourishednaturally. The age, moreover, was an eloquent, not to say arhetorical, age; and the influence of Johnson's orotund prose, of thedeclamatory _Letters of Junius_, and of the speeches of Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and the elder Pitt is perceptible in the debates of our earlyCongresses. The fame of a great orator, like that of a great actor, islargely traditionary. The spoken word transferred to the printed pageloses the glow which resided in the man and the moment. A speech isgood if it attains its aim, if it moves the hearers to the end which issought. But the fact that this end is often temporary and occasional, rather than universal and permanent, explains why so few speeches arereally literature. If this is true, even where the words of an oratorare preserved exactly as they were spoken, it is doubly true when wehave only the testimony of contemporaries as to the effect which theoration produced. The fiery utterances of Adams, Otis, and Quincy wereeither not reported at all or very imperfectly reported, so thatposterity can judge of them only at second-hand. Patrick Henry hasfared better, many of his orations being preserved in substance, if notin the letter, in Wirt's biography. Of these the most famous was thedefiant speech in the Convention of Delegates, March 28, 1775, throwingdown the gauge of battle to the British ministry. The ringingsentences of this challenge are still declaimed by school-boys, andmany of them remain as familiar as household words. "I have but onelamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. . . . Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. . . . Is lifeso dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chainsand slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course othersmay take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" Theeloquence of Patrick Henry was fervid rather than weighty or rich. Butif such specimens of the oratory of the American patriots as have comedown to us fail to account for the wonderful impression that theirwords are said to have produced upon their fellow-countrymen, we shouldremember that they are at a disadvantage when read instead of heard. The imagination should supply all those accessories which gave themvitality when first pronounced--the living presence and voice of thespeaker; the listening Senate; the grave excitement of the hour and ofthe impending conflict. The wordiness and exaggeration; the highlyLatinized diction; the rhapsodies about freedom which hundreds ofFourth-of-July addresses have since turned into platitudes--all thesecoming hot from the lips of men whose actions in the field confirmedthe earnestness of their speech--were effective in the crisis and forthe purpose to which they were addressed. 

The press was an agent in the cause of liberty no less potent than theplatform, and patriots such as Adams, Otis, Quincy, Warren, and Hancockwrote constantly, for the newspapers, essays and letters on the publicquestions of the time signed "Vindex, " "Hyperion, " "Independent, ""Brutus, " "Cassius, " and the like, and couched in language which to thetaste of to-day seems rather over-rhetorical. Among the most importantof these political essays were the _Circular Letter to each ColonialLegislature_, published by Adams and Otis in 1768; Quincy's_Observations on the Boston Port Bill_, 1774, and Otis's _Rights of theBritish Colonies_, a pamphlet of one hundred and twenty pages, printedin 1764. No collection of Otis's writings has ever been made. Thelife of Quincy, published by his son, preserves for posterity hisjournals and correspondence, his newspaper essays, and his speeches atthe bar, taken from the Massachusetts law reports. 

Among the political literature which is of perennial interest to theAmerican people are such State documents as the Declaration ofIndependence, the Constitution of the United States, and the messages, inaugural addresses, and other writings of our early presidents. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, and thefather of the Democratic party, was the author of the Declaration ofIndependence, whose opening sentences have become commonplaces in thememory of all readers. One sentence in particular has been as ashibboleth, or war-cry, or declaration of faith among Democrats of allshades of opinion: "We hold these truths to be self-evident--that allmen are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator withcertain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and thepursuit of happiness. " Not so familiar to modern readers is thefollowing, which an English historian of our literature calls "the mosteloquent clause of that great document, " and "the most interestingsuppressed passage in American literature. " Jefferson was aSoutherner, but even at that early day the South had grown sensitive onthe subject of slavery, and Jefferson's arraignment of King George forpromoting the "peculiar institution" was left out from the final draftof the Declaration in deference to Southern members. 

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its mostsacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant peoplewho never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery inanother hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportationthither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, isthe warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keepopen a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostitutedhis negative by suppressing every legislative attempt to restrain thisexecrable commerce. And, that this assemblage of horrors might want nofact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to risein arms against us and purchase that liberty of which he deprived themby murdering the people upon whom he obtruded them, and thus paying offformer crimes committed against the liberties of one people by crimeswhich he urges them to commit against the lives of another. "

The tone of apology or defense which Calhoun and other Southernstatesman afterward adopted on the subject of slavery was not taken bythe men of Jefferson's generation. Another famous Virginian, JohnRandolph of Roanoke, himself a slave-holder, in his speech on themilitia bill in the House of Representatives, December 10, 1811, said:"I speak from facts when I say that the night-bell never tolls for firein Richmond that the mother does not hug her infant more closely to herbosom. " This was said _apropos_ of the danger of a servileinsurrection in the event of a war with England--a war which actuallybroke out in the year following, but was not attended with theslave-rising which Randolph predicted. Randolph was a thorough-going"State rights" man, and, though opposed to slavery on principle, hecried "Hands off!" to any interference by the general government withthe domestic institutions of the States. His speeches read better thanmost of his contemporaries'. They are interesting in their exhibit ofa bitter and eccentric individuality, witty, incisive, and expressed ina pungent and familiar style which contrasts refreshingly with thediplomatic language and glittering generalities of most congressionaloratory, whose verbiage seems to keep its subject always atarm's-length. 

Another noteworthy writing of Jefferson's was his Inaugural Address ofMarch 4, 1801, with its programme of "equal and exact justice to allmen, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling allianceswith none; the support of the State governments in all theirrights; . . . Absolute acquiescence in the decisions of themajority; . . . The supremacy of the civil over the military authority;economy in the public expense; freedom of religion, freedom of thepress, and freedom of person under the protection of the _habeascorpus_, and trial by juries impartially selected. "

During his six years' residence in France, as American minister, Jefferson had become indoctrinated with the principles of Frenchdemocracy. His main service and that of his party--the Democratic, or, as it was then called, the Republican party--to the young republic wasin its insistence upon toleration of all beliefs and upon the freedomof the individual from all forms of governmental restraint. Jeffersonhas some claims to rank as an author in general literature. Educatedat William and Mary College in the old Virginia capital, Williamsburg, he became the founder of the University of Virginia, in which he madespecial provision for the study of Anglo-Saxon, and in which theliberal scheme of instruction and discipline was conformed, in theory, at least, to the "university idea. " His _Notes on Virginia_ are notwithout literary quality, and one description, in particular, has beenoften quoted--the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge--inwhich is this poetically imaginative touch: "The mountain being clovenasunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch ofsmooth blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and ytumult roaring around, topass through the breach and participate of the calm below. "

After the conclusion of peace with England, in 1783, politicaldiscussion centered about the Constitution, which in 1788 took theplace of the looser Articles of Confederation adopted in 1778. TheConstitution as finally ratified was a compromise between twoparties--the Federalists, who wanted a strong central government, andthe Anti-Federals (afterward called Republicans, or Democrats), whowished to preserve State sovereignty. The debates on the adoption ofthe Constitution, both in the General Convention of the States, whichmet at Philadelphia in 1787, and in the separate State conventionscalled to ratify its action, form a valuable body of comment andillustration upon the instrument itself. One of the most notable ofthe speeches in opposition was Patrick Henry's address before theVirginia Convention. "That this is a consolidated government, " hesaid, "is demonstrably clear; and the danger of such a government is, to my mind, very striking. " The leader of the Federal party wasAlexander Hamilton, the ablest constructive intellect among thestatesmen of our Revolutionary era, of whom Talleyrand said that he"had never known his equal, " whom Guizot classed with "the men who havebest known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of agovernment worthy of its name and mission. " Hamilton's speech _On theExpediency of Adopting the Federal Constitution_, delivered in theConvention of New York, June 24, 1788, was a masterly statement of thenecessity and advantages of the Union. But the most completeexposition of the constitutional philosophy of the Federal party wasthe series of eighty-five papers entitled the _Federalist_, printedduring the years 1787-88, and mostly in the _Independent Journal_ ofNew York, over the signature "Publius. " These were the work ofHamilton, of John Jay, afterward, chief-justice, and of James Madison, afterward president of the United States. The _Federalist_ papers, though written in a somewhat ponderous diction, are among the greatlandmarks of American history, and were in themselves a politicaleducation to the generation that read them. Hamilton was a brilliantand versatile figure, a persuasive orator, a forcible writer, and assecretary of the treasury under Washington the foremost of Americanfinanciers. He was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr, at Weehawken, in1804. 

The Federalists were victorious, and under the provisions of the newConstitution George Washington was inaugurated first President of theUnited States, on March 4, 1789. Washington's writings have beencollected by Jared Sparks. They consist of journals, letters, messages, addresses, and public documents, for the most part plain andbusiness-like in manner, and without any literary pretensions. Themost elaborate and the best known of them is his _Farewell Address_, issued on his retirement from the presidency in 1796. In thecomposition of this he was assisted by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. Itis wise in substance and dignified, though somewhat stilted inexpression. The correspondence of John Adams, second President of theUnited States, and his _Diary_, kept from 1755-85, should also bementioned as important sources for a full knowledge of this period. 

In the long life-and-death struggle of Great Britain against the FrenchRepublic and its successor, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Federalist party inthis country naturally sympathized with England, and the JeffersonianDemocracy with France. The Federalists, who distrusted the sweepingabstractions of the French Revolution and clung to the conservativenotions of a checked and balanced freedom, inherited from Englishprecedent, were accused of monarchical and aristocratic leanings. Ontheir side they were not slow to accuse their adversaries of Frenchatheism and French Jacobinism. By a singular reversal of the naturalorder of things, the strength of the Federalist party was in NewEngland, which was socially democratic, while the strength of theJeffersonians was in the South, whose social structure--owing to thesystem of slavery--was intensely aristocratic. The War of 1812 withEngland was so unpopular in New England, by reason of the injury whichit threatened to inflict on its commerce, that the Hartford Conventionof 1814 was more than suspected of a design to bring about thesecession of New England from the Union. A good deal of oratory wascalled out by the debates on the commercial treaty with Great Britainnegotiated by Jay in 1795, by the Alien and Sedition Law of 1798, andby other pieces of Federalist legislation, previous to the downfall ofthat party and the election of Jefferson to the presidency in 1800. The best of the Federalist orators during those years was Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, and the best of his orations was, perhaps, his speechon the British treaty in the House of Representatives, April 18, 1796. The speech was, in great measure, a protest against American chauvinismand the violation of international obligations. "It has been said theworld ought to rejoice if Britain was sunk in the sea; if where thereare now men and wealth and laws and liberty there was no more than asand-bank for sea-monsters to fatten on; space for the storms of theocean to mingle in conflict. . . . What is patriotism? Is it a narrowaffection for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods wherewe tread entitled to this ardent preference because they aregreener? . . . I see no exception to the respect that is paid amongnations to the law of good faith. . . . It is observed bybarbarians--a whiff of tobacco-smoke or a string of beads gives notmerely binding force but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers a trucemay be bought for money, but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wiseor too just to disown and annul its obligation. " Ames was a scholar, and his speeches are more finished and thoughtful, more _literary_, ina way, than those of his contemporaries. His eulogiums on Washingtonand Hamilton are elaborate tributes, rather excessive, perhaps, inlaudation and in classical allusions. In all the oratory of theRevolutionary period there is nothing equal in deep and condensedenergy of feeling to the single clause in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died invain. "

A prominent figure during and after the War of the Revolution wasThomas Paine, or, as he was somewhat disrespectfully called, "TomPaine. " He was a dissenting minister who, conceiving himselfill-treated by the British government, came to Philadelphia in 1774 andthrew himself heart and soul into the colonial cause. His pamphlet, _Common Sense_, issued in 1776, began with the famous words, "These arethe times that try men's souls. " This was followed by the _Crisis_, aseries of political essays advocating independence and theestablishment of a republic, published in periodical form, though atirregular intervals. Paine's rough and vigorous advocacy was of greatservice to the American patriots. His writings were popular and hisarguments were of a kind easily understood by plain people, addressingthemselves to the common sense, the prejudices and passions ofunlettered readers. He afterward went to France and took an activepart in the popular movement there, crossing swords with Burke in his_Rights of Man_, 1791-92, written in defense of the French Revolution. He was one of the two foreigners who sat in the Convention; but fallingunder suspicion during the days of the Terror, he was committed to theprison of the Luxembourg and only released upon the fall of RobespierreJuly 27, 1794. While in prison he wrote a portion of his best-knownwork, the _Age of Reason_. This appeared in two parts in 1794 and1795, the manuscript of the first part having been intrusted to JoelBarlow, the American poet, who happened to be in Paris when Paine wassent to prison. 

The _Age of Reason_ damaged Paine's reputation in America, where thename of "Tom Paine" became a stench in the nostrils of the godly and asynonym for atheism and blasphemy. His book was denounced from ahundred pulpits, and copies of it were carefully locked away from thesight of "the young, " whose religious beliefs it might undermine. Itwas, in effect, a crude and popular statement of the deistic argumentagainst Christianity. What the cutting logic and persiflage--the_sourire hideux_--of Voltaire had done in France, Paine, with coarsermaterials, essayed to do for the English-speaking populations. Deismwas in the air of the time; Franklin, Jefferson, Ethan Allen, JoelBarlow, and other prominent Americans were openly or unavowedlydeistic. Free thought, somehow, went along with democratic opinions, and was a part of the liberal movement of the age. Paine was a manwithout reverence, imagination, or religious feeling. He was noscholar, and he was not troubled by any perception of the deeper andsubtler aspects of the questions which he touched. In his examinationof the Old and New Testaments he insisted that the Bible was animposition and a forgery, full of lies, absurdities, and obscenities. Supernatural Christianity, with all its mysteries and miracles, was afraud practiced by priests upon the people, and churches wereinstruments of oppression in the hands of tyrants. This way ofaccounting for Christianity would not now be accepted by even the most"advanced" thinkers. The contest between skepticism and revelation haslong since shifted to other grounds. Both the philosophy and thetemper of the _Age of Reason_ belong to the eighteenth century. ButPaine's downright pugnacious method of attack was effective withshrewd, half-educated doubters; and in America well-thumbed copies ofhis book passed from hand to hand in many a rural tavern or store, where the village atheist wrestled in debate with the deacon or theschoolmaster. Paine rested his argument against Christianity upon thefamiliar grounds of the incredibility of miracles, the falsity ofprophecy, the cruelty or immorality of Moses and David and other OldTestament worthies, the disagreement of the evangelists in theirgospels, etc. The spirit of his book and his competence as a criticare illustrated by his saying of the New Testament: "Any person whocould tell a story of an apparition, or of a man's walking, could havemade such books, for the story is most wretchedly told. The sum totalof a parson's learning is _a-b_, _ab_, and _hic_, _hoec_, _hoc_, andthis is more than sufficient to have enabled them, had they lived atthe time, to have written all the books of the New Testament. "

When we turn from the political and controversial writings of theRevolution to such lighter literature as existed, we find little thatwould deserve mention in a more crowded period. The few things in thiskind that have kept afloat on the current of time--_rari nantes ingurgite vasto_--attract attention rather by reason of their fewnessthan of any special excellence that they have. During the eighteenthcentury American literature continued to accommodate itself to changesof taste in the old country. The so-called classical or Augustanwriters of the reign of Queen Anne replaced other models of style; the_Spectator_ set the fashion of almost all of our lighter prose, fromFranklin's _Busybody_ down to the time of Irving, who perpetuated theAddisonian tradition later than any English writer. The influence ofLocke, of Dr. Johnson, and of the parliamentary orators has alreadybeen mentioned. In poetry the example of Pope was dominant, so that wefind, for example, William Livingston, who became governor of NewJersey and a member of the Continental Congress, writing in 1747 a poemon _Philosophic Solitude_ which reproduces the tricks of Pope'santitheses and climaxes with the imagery of the _Rape of the Lock_, andthe didactic morality of the _Imitations from Horace_ and the _MoralEssays_:

 "Let ardent heroes seek renown to arms, Pant after fame and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteemed at court. Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, garters, stars, Fops, fiddlers, tyrants, emperors, and czars. "

The most popular poem of the Revolutionary period was John Trumbull's_McFingal_, published in part at Philadelphia in 1775, and incompleteshape at Hartford in 1782. It went through more than thirty editionsin America, and was several times reprinted in England. _McFingal_ wasa satire in four cantos, directed against the American loyalists, andmodeled quite closely upon Butler's mock heroic poem, _Hudibras_. AsButler's hero sallies forth to put down May games and bear-baitings, sothe tory McFingal goes out against the liberty-poles and bonfires ofthe patriots, but is tarred and feathered, and otherwise ill-entreated, and finally takes refuge in the camp of General Gage at Boston. Thepoem is written with smartness and vivacity, attains often to drolleryand sometimes to genuine humor. It remains one of the best of Americanpolitical satires, and unquestionably the most successful of the manyimitations of _Hudibras_, whose manner it follows so closely that someof its lines, which have passed into currency as proverbs, aregenerally attributed to Butler. For example:

 "No man e'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law. "

Or this:

 "For any man with half an eye What stands before him may espy; But optics sharp it needs, I ween, To see what is not to be seen. "

Trumbull's wit did not spare the vulnerable points of his owncountrymen, as in his sharp skit at slavery in the couplet about thenewly adopted flag of the Confederation:

 "Inscribed with inconsistent types Of Liberty and thirteen stripes. "

Trumbull was one of a group of Connecticut literati, who made suchnoise in their time as the "Hartford Wits. " The other members of thegroup were Lemuel Hopkins, David Humphreys, Joel Barlow, Elihu Smith, Theodore Dwight, and Richard Alsop. Trumbull, Humphreys, and Barlowhad formed a friendship and a kind of literary partnership at Yale, where they were contemporaries of each other and of Timothy Dwight. During the war they served in the army in various capacities, and atits close they found themselves again together for a few years atHartford, where they formed a club that met weekly for social andliterary purposes. Their presence lent a sort of _éclat_ to the littleprovincial capital, and their writings made it for a time anintellectual center quite as important as Boston or Philadelphia or NewYork. The Hartford Wits were stanch Federalists, and used their pensfreely in support of the administrations of Washington and Adams, andin ridicule of Jefferson and the Democrats. In 1786-87 Trumbull, Hopkins, Barlow, and Humphreys published in the _New Haven Gazette_ aseries of satirical papers entitled the _Anarchiad_, suggested by theEnglish _Rolliad_, and purporting to be extracts from an ancient epicon "the Restoration of Chaos and Substantial Night. " The papers werean effort to correct, by ridicule, the anarchic condition of thingswhich preceded the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1789. Itwas a time of great confusion and discontent, when, in parts of thecountry, Democratic mobs were protesting against the vote of fiveyears' pay by the Continental Congress to the officers of the Americanarmy. The _Anarchiad_ was followed by the _Echo_ and the _PoliticalGreen House_, written mostly by Alsop and Theodore Dwight, and similarin character and tendency to the earlier series. Time has greatlyblunted the edge of these satires, but they were influential in theirday, and are an important part of the literature of the old Federalistparty. 

Humphreys became afterward distinguished in the diplomatic service, andwas, successively, embassador to Portugal and to Spain, whence heintroduced into America the breed of merino sheep. He had been onWashington's staff during the war, and was several times an inmate ofhis house at Mount Vernon, where he produced, in 1785, the best-knownof his writings, _Mount Vernon_, an ode of a rather mild description, which once had admirers. Joel Barlow cuts a larger figure incontemporary letters. After leaving Hartford, in 1788, he went toFrance, where he resided for seventeen years, made a fortune inspeculations, and became imbued with French principles, writing a songin praise of the guillotine, which gave great scandal to his oldfriends at home. In 1805 he returned to America and built a fineresidence near Washington, which he called Kalorama. Barlow's literaryfame, in his own generation, rested upon his prodigious epic, the_Columbiad_. The first form of this was the _Vision of Columbus_, published at Hartford in 1787. This he afterward recast and enlargedinto the _Columbiad_, issued in Philadelphia in 1807, and dedicated toRobert Fulton, the inventor of the steam-boat. This was by far themost sumptuous piece of book-making that had then been published inAmerica, and was embellished with plates executed by the best Londonengravers. 

The _Columbiad_ was a grandiose performance, and has been the theme ofmuch ridicule by later writers. Hawthorne suggested its beingdramatized, and put on to the accompaniment of artillery and thunderand lightning; and E. P. Whipple declared that "no critic in the lastfifty years had read more than a hundred lines of it. " In itsambitiousness and its length it was symptomatic of the spirit of theage which was patriotically determined to create, by _tour de force_, anational literature of a size commensurate with the scale of Americannature and the destinies of the republic. As America was bigger thanArgos and Troy we ought to have a bigger epic than the _Iliad_. Accordingly, Barlow makes Hesper fetch Columbus from his prison to a"hill of vision, " where he unrolls before his eye a panorama of thehistory of America, or, as our bards then preferred to call it, Columbia. He shows him the conquest of Mexico by Cortez; the rise andfall of the kingdom of the Incas in Peru; the settlements of theEnglish colonies in North America; the old French and Indian wars; theRevolution, ending with a prophecy of the future greatness of thenew-born nation. The machinery of the _Vision_ was borrowed from the11th and 12th books of _Paradise Lost_. Barlow's verse was theten-syllabled rhyming couplet of Pope, and his poetic style wasdistinguished by the vague, glittering imagery and the false sublimitywhich marked the epic attempts of the Queen Anne poets. Though Barlowwas but a masquerader in true heroic he showed himself a true poet inmock heroic. His _Hasty Pudding_, written in Savoy in 1793, anddedicated to Mrs. Washington, was thoroughly American, in subject atleast, and its humor, though over-elaborate, is good. One couplet inparticular has prevailed against oblivion:

 "E'en in thy native regions how I blush To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee _Mush_!"

Another Connecticut poet--one of the seven who were fondly named "ThePleiads of Connecticut"--was Timothy Dwight, whose _Conquest ofCanaan_, written shortly after his graduation from college, but notpublished till 1785, was, like the _Columbiad_, an experiment towardthe domestication of the epic muse in America. It was written likeBarlow's poem, in rhymed couplets, and the patriotic impulse of thetime shows oddly in the introduction of our Revolutionary War, by wayof episode, among the wars of Israel. _Greenfield Hill_, 1794, was anidyllic and moralizing poem, descriptive of a rural parish inConnecticut of which the author was for a time the pastor. It is notquite without merit; shows plainly the influence of Goldsmith, Thomson, and Beattie, but as a whole is tedious and tame. Byron was amused thatthere should have been an American poet christened Timothy, and it isto be feared that amusement would have been the chief emotion kindledin the breast of the wicked Voltaire had he ever chanced to see thestern dedication to himself of the same poet's _Triumph of Infidelity_, 1788. Much more important than Dwight's poetry was his able _TheologyExplained and Defended_, 1794, a restatement, with modifications, ofthe Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards, which was accepted by theCongregational churches of New England as an authoritative exponent ofthe orthodoxy of the time. His _Travels in New England and New York_, including descriptions of Niagara, the White Mountains, Lake George, the Catskills, and other passages of natural scenery, not so familiarthen as now, was published posthumously in 1821, was praised bySouthey, and is still readable. As President of Yale College from 1795to 1817 Dwight, by his learning and ability, his sympathy with youngmen, and the force and dignity of his character, exerted a greatinfluence in the community. 

The strong political bias of the time drew into its vortex most of themiscellaneous literature that was produced. A number of ballads, serious and comic, whig and tory, dealing with the battles and otherincidents of the long war, enjoyed a wide circulation in the newspapersor were hawked about in printed broadsides. Most of these have noliterary merit, and are now mere antiquarian curiosities. A favoritepiece on the tory side was the _Cow Chase_, a cleverish parody on_Chevy Chase_, written by the gallant and unfortunate Major Andre, atthe expense of "Mad" Anthony Wayne. The national song _Yankee Doodle_was evolved during the Revolution, and, as is the case with _JohnBrown's Body_ and many other popular melodies, some obscurity hangsabout its origin. The air was an old one, and the words of the chorusseem to have been adapted or corrupted from a Dutch song, and appliedin derision to the provincials by the soldiers of the British army asearly as 1755. Like many another nickname, the term Yankee Doodle wastaken up by the nicknamed and proudly made their own. The stanza, "Yankee Doodle came to town, " etc. , antedates the war; but the first complete set of words to the tune wasthe _Yankee's Return from Camp_, which is apparently of the year 1775. The most popular humorous ballad on the whig side was the _Battle ofthe Kegs_, founded on a laughable incident of the campaign atPhiladelphia. This was written by Francis Hopkinson, a Philadelphian, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Hopkinsonhas some title to rank as one of the earliest American humorists. Without the keen wit of _McFingal_, some of his _Miscellaneous Essaysand Occasional Writings_, published in 1792, have more geniality andheartiness than Trumbull's satire. His _Letter on Whitewashing_ is abit of domestic humor that foretokens the _Danbury News_ man; and his_Modern Learning_, 1784, a burlesque on college examinations, in whicha salt-box is described from the point of view of metaphysics, logic, natural philosophy, mathematics, anatomy, surgery, and chemistry, longkept its place in school-readers and other collections. His son, Joseph Hopkinson, wrote the song of _Hail Columbia_, which is savedfrom insignificance only by the music to which it was married, the thenpopular air of "The President's March. " The words were written in1798, on the eve of a threatened war with France, and at a time whenparty spirit ran high. It was sung nightly by crowds in the streets, and for a whole season by a favorite singer at the theater; for by thistime there were theaters in Philadelphia, in New York, and even inpuritanic Boston. Much better than _Hail Columbia_ was the_Star-Spangled Banner_, the words of which were composed by FrancisScott Key, a Marylander, during the bombardment by the British of FortMcHenry, near Baltimore, in 1812. More pretentious than these was theonce celebrated ode of Robert Treat Paine, Jr. , _Adams and Liberty_, recited at an anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society. The sale of this is said to have netted its author over $750, but itis, notwithstanding, a very wooden performance. Paine was a youngHarvard graduate, who had married an actress playing at the Old FederalStreet Theater, the first play-house opened in Boston, in 1794. Hisname was originally Thomas, but this was changed for him by theMassachusetts Legislature, because he did not wish to be confoundedwith the author of the _Age of Reason_. "Dim are those names erstwhilein battle loud, " and many an old Revolutionary worthy who fought forliberty with sword and pen is now utterly forgotten, or remembered onlyby some phrase which has become a current quotation. Here and there aline has, by accident, survived to do duty as a motto or inscription, while all its context is buried in oblivion. Few have read any thingmore of Jonathan M. Sewall's, for example, than the couplet, "No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, But the whole boundless continent is yours, "

taken from his _Epilogue to Cato_, written in 1778. 

Another Revolutionary poet was Philip Freneau--"that rascal Freneau, "as Washington called him, when annoyed by the attacks upon hisadministration in Freneau's _National Gazette_. He was of Huguenotdescent, was a class-mate of Madison at Princeton College, was takenprisoner by the British during the war, and when the war was overengaged in journalism, as an ardent supporter of Jefferson and theDemocrats. Freneau's patriotic verses and political lampoons are nowunreadable; but he deserves to rank as the first real American poet, byvirtue of his _Wild Honeysuckle_, _Indian Burying Ground_, _IndianStudent_, and a few other little pieces, which exhibit a grace anddelicacy inherited, perhaps, with his French blood, Indeed, to speak strictly, all of the "poets" hitherto mentioned werenothing but rhymers; but in Freneau we meet with something of beautyand artistic feeling; something which still keeps his verses fresh. Inhis treatment of Indian themes, in particular, appear for the firsttime a sense of the picturesque and poetic elements in the characterand wild life of the red man, and that pensive sentiment which thefading away of the tribes toward the sunset has left in the wake oftheir retreating footsteps. In this Freneau anticipates Cooper andLongfellow, though his work is slight compared with the_Leatherstocking Tales_ or _Hiawatha_. At the time when theRevolutionary War broke out the population of the colonies was overthree millions; Philadelphia had thirty thousand inhabitants, and thefrontier had retired to a comfortable distance from the sea-board. TheIndian had already grown legendary to town dwellers, and Freneaufetches his _Indian Student_ not from the outskirts of the settlementbut from the remote backwoods of the State:

 "From Susquehanna's farthest springs, Where savage tribes pursue their game (His blanket tied with yellow strings), A shepherd of the forest came. "

Campbell "lifted"--in his poem _O'Conor's Child_--the last line of thefollowing stanza from Freneau's _Indian Burying Ground_:

 "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 Walter Scott did Freneau the honor to borrow, in _Marmion_, thefinal line of one of the stanzas of his poem on the battle of EutawSprings:

 "They saw their injured country's woe, The flaming town, the wasted field; Then rushed to meet the insulting foe, They took the spear, but left the shield. "

Scott inquired of an American gentleman who visited him the authorshipof this poem, which he had by heart, and pronounced it as fine a thingof the kind as there was in the language. 

The American drama and American prose fiction had their beginningduring the period now under review. A company of English players cameto this country in 1762 and made the tour of many of the principaltowns. The first play acted here by professionals on a public stagewas the _Merchant of Venice_, which was given by the English company atWilliamsburg, Va. , in 1752. The first regular theater building was atAnnapolis, Md. , where in the same year this troupe performed, amongother pieces, Farquhar's _Beaux' Stratagem_. In 1753 a theater wasbuilt in New York, and one in 1759 in Philadelphia. The Quakers ofPhiladelphia and the Puritans of Boston were strenuously opposed to theacting of plays, and in the latter city the players were several timesarrested during the performances, under a Massachusetts law forbiddingdramatic performances. At Newport, R. I. , on the other hand, which wasa health resort for planters from the Southern States and the WestIndies, and the largest slave-market in the North, the actors werehospitably received. The first play known to have been written by anAmerican was the _Prince of Parthia_, 1765, a closet drama, by ThomasGodfrey, of Philadelphia. The first play by an American writer, actedby professionals in a public theater, was Royall Tyler's _Contrast_, performed in New York, in 1786. The former of these was very hightragedy, and the latter very low comedy; and neither of them isotherwise remarkable than as being the first of a long line ofindifferent dramas. There is, in fact, no American dramatic literatureworth speaking of; not a single American play of even the second rank, unless we except a few graceful parlor comedies, like Mr. Howell's_Elevator_ and _Sleeping-Car_. Royall Tyler, the author of _TheContrast_, cut quite a figure in his day as a wit and journalist, andeventually became chief-justice of Vermont. His comedy, _The GeorgiaSpec_, 1797, had a great run in Boston, and his _Algerine Captive_, published in the same year, was one of the earliest American novels. It was a rambling tale of adventure, constructed somewhat upon the planof Smollett's novels and dealing with the piracies which led to the warbetween the United States and Algiers in 1815. 

Charles Brockden Brown, the first American novelist of any note, wasalso the first professional man of letters in this country whosupported himself entirely by his pen. He was born in Philadelphia in1771, lived a part of his life in New York and part in his native city, where he started, in 1803, the _Literary Magazine and AmericanRegister_. During the years 1798-1801 he published in rapid successionsix romances, _Wieland_, _Ormond_, _Arthur Mervyn_, _Edgar Huntley_, _Clara Howard_, and _Jane Talbot_. Brown was an invalid and somethingof a recluse, with a relish for the ghastly in incident and the morbidin character. He was in some points a prophecy of Poe and Hawthorne, though his art was greatly inferior to Poe's, and almost infinitely soto Hawthorne's. His books belong more properly to the contemporaryschool of fiction in England which preceded the "Waverley Novels"--tothe class that includes Beckford's _Vathek_, Godwin's _Caleb Williams_and _St. Leon_, Mrs. Shelley's _Frankenstein_, and such "Gothic"romances as Lewis's _Monk_, Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_, and Mrs. Radcliffe's _Mysteries of Udolpho_. A distinguishing characteristic ofthis whole school is what we may call the clumsy-horrible. Brown'sromances are not wanting in inventive power, in occasional situationsthat are intensely thrilling, and in subtle analysis of character; butthey are fatally defective in art. The narrative is by turns abruptand tiresomely prolix, proceeding not so much by dialogue as byelaborate dissection and discussion of motives and states of mind, interspersed with the author's reflections. The wild improbabilitiesof plot and the unnatural and even monstrous developments of characterare in startling contrast with the old-fashioned preciseness of thelanguage; the conversations, when there are any, being conducted inthat insipid dialect in which a fine woman was called an "elegantfemale. " The following is a sample description of one of Brown'sheroines, and is taken from his novel of _Ormond_, the leadingcharacter in which--a combination of unearthly intellect with fiendishwickedness--is thought to have been suggested by Aaron Burr: "HelenaCleves was endowed with every feminine and fascinating quality. Herfeatures were modified by the most transient sentiments and were theseat of a softness at all times blushful and bewitching. All thosegraces of symmetry, smoothness, and luster, which assemble in theimagination of the painter when he calls from the bosom of her nataldeep the Paphian divinity, blended their perfections in the shade, complexion, and hair of this lady. " But, alas! "Helena's intellectualdeficiencies could not be concealed. She was proficient in theelements of no science. The doctrine of lines and surfaces was asdisproportionate with her intellects as with those of the mock-bird. She had not reasoned on the principles of human action, nor examinedthe structure of society. . . . She could not commune in their nativedialect with the sages of Rome and Athens. . . . The constitution ofnature, the attributes of its Author, the arrangement of the parts ofthe external universe, and the substance, modes of operation, andultimate destiny of human intelligence were enigmas unsolved andinsoluble by her. "

Brown frequently raises a superstructure of mystery on a basisludicrously weak. Thus the hero of his first novel, _Wieland_ (whosefather anticipates "Old Krook, " in Dickens's _Bleak House_, by dying ofspontaneous combustion), is led on by what he mistakes for spiritualvoices to kill his wife and children; and the voices turn out to beproduced by the ventriloquism of one Carwin, the villain of the story. Similarly in Edgar Huntley, the plot turns upon the phenomena ofsleep-walking. Brown had the good sense to place the scene of hisromances in his own country, and the only passages in them which havenow a living interest are his descriptions of wilderness scenery in_Edgar Huntley_, and his graphic account in _Arthur Mervyn_ of theyellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793. Shelley was an admirerof Brown, and his experiments in prose fiction, such as _Zastrozzi_ and_St. Irvyne the Rosicrucian_, are of the same abnormal and speculativetype. 

Another book which falls within this period was the _Journal_, 1774, ofJohn Woolman, a New Jersey Quaker, which has received the highestpraise from Channing, Charles Lamb, and many others. "Get the writingsof John Woolman by heart, " wrote Lamb, "and love the early Quakers. "The charm of this journal resides in its singular sweetness andinnocence of feeling, the "deep inward stillness" peculiar to thepeople called Quakers. Apart from his constant use of certain phrasespeculiar to the Friends Woolman's English is also remarkably gracefuland pure, the transparent medium of a soul absolutely sincere, andtender and humble in its sincerity. When not working at his trade as atailor Woolman spent his time in visiting and ministering to themonthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings of Friends, traveling onhorseback to their scattered communities in the backwoods of Virginiaand North Carolina, and northward along the coast as far as Boston andNantucket. He was under a "concern" and a "heavy exercise" touchingthe keeping of slaves, and by his writing and speaking did much toinfluence the Quakers against slavery. His love went out, indeed, toall the wretched and oppressed; to sailors, and to the Indians inparticular. One of his most perilous journeys was made to thesettlements of Moravian Indians in the wilderness of westernPennsylvania, at Bethlehem, and at Wehaloosing, on the Susquehanna. Some of the scruples which Woolman felt, and the quaint _naïveté_ withwhich he expresses them, may make the modern reader smile, but it is asmile which is very close to a tear. Thus, when in England--where hedied in 1772--he would not ride nor send a letter by mail-coach, because the poor post-boys were compelled to ride long stages in winternights, and were sometimes frozen to death. "So great is the hurry inthe spirit of this world that, in aiming to do business quickly and togain wealth, the creation at this day doth loudly groan. " Again, having reflected that war was caused by luxury in dress, etc. , the useof dyed garments grew uneasy to him, and he got and wore a hat of thenatural color of the fur. "In attending meetings this singularity wasa trial to me, . . . And some Friends, who knew not from what motives Iwore it, grew shy of me. . . . Those who spoke with me I generallyinformed, in a few words, that I believed my wearing it was not in myown will. "

1. _Representative American Orations_. Edited by Alexander Johnston. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1884. 

2. _The Federalist_. New York: Charles Scribner. 1863. 

3. _Notes on Virginia_. By Thomas Jefferson. Boston. 1829. 

4. _Travels in New England and New York_. By Timothy Dwight. NewHaven. 1821. 

5. _McFingal_: in Trumbull's Poetical Works. Hartford. 1820. 

6. Joel Barlow's _Hasty Pudding_. Francis Hopkinson's _ModernLearning_. Philip Freneau's _Indian Student_, _Indian Burying-Ground_, and _White Honeysuckle_: in Vol. I of Duyckinck's _Cyclopedia ofAmerican Literature_. New York: Charles Scribner. 1866. 

7. _Arthur Mervyn_. By Charles Brockden Brown. Boston: S. G. Goodrich. 1827. 

8. _The Journal of John Woolman_. With an Introduction by John G. Whittier. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. 1871. 

9. _American Literature_. By Charles F. Richardson. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1887. 

10. _American Literature_. By John Nichol. Edinburgh: Adam & CharlesBlack. 1882. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ERA OF NATIONAL EXPANSION. 

1815-1837. 

The attempt to preserve a strictly chronological order must here beabandoned. About all the American literature in existence that is ofany value as _literature_ is the product of the past three quarters ofa century, and the men who produced it, though older or younger, werestill contemporaries. Irving's _Knickerbocker's History of New York_, 1809, was published within the recollection of some yet living, and thevenerable poet Richard H. Dana--Irving's junior by only fouryears--survived to 1879, when the youngest of the generation of writersthat now occupy public attention had already won their spurs. Bryant, whose _Thanatopsis_ was printed in 1816, lived down to 1878. He sawthe beginnings of our national literature, and he saw almost as much ofthe latest phase of it as we see to-day in this year 1891. Still, evenwithin the limits of a single life-time, there have been progress andchange. And so, while it will happen that the consideration ofwriters, a part of whose work falls between the dates at the head ofthis chapter, may be postponed to subsequent chapters, we may in ageneral way follow the sequence of time. 

The period between the close of the second war with England, in 1815, and the great financial crash of 1837, has been called, in languageattributed to President Monroe, "the era of good feeling. " It was atime of peace and prosperity, of rapid growth in population and rapidextension of territory. The new nation was entering upon its vastestates and beginning to realize its manifest destiny. The peace withGreat Britain, by calling off the Canadian Indians and the other tribesin alliance with England, had opened up the North-west to settlement. Ohio had been admitted as a State in 1802; but at the time of PresidentMonroe's tour, in 1817, Cincinnati had only seven thousand inhabitants, and half of the State was unsettled. The Ohio River flowed for most ofits course through an unbroken wilderness. Chicago was merely a fort. Hitherto the emigration to the West had been sporadic; now it took onthe dimensions of a general and almost a concerted exodus. Thismovement was stimulated in New England by the cold summer of 1816 andthe late spring of 1817, which produced a scarcity of food thatamounted in parts of the interior to a veritable famine. All throughthis period sounded the ax of the pioneer clearing the forest about hislog-cabin, and the rumble of the canvas-covered emigrant-wagon over theprimitive highways which crossed the Alleghanies or followed the valleyof the Mohawk. S. G. Goodrich, known in letters as "Peter Parley, " inhis _Recollections of a Life-time_, 1856, describes the part of themovement which he had witnessed as a boy in Fairfield County, Connecticut: "I remember very well the tide of emigration throughConnecticut, on its way to the West, during the summer of 1817. Somepersons went in covered wagons--frequently a family consisting offather, mother, and nine small children, with one at the breast--someon foot, and some crowded together under the cover, with kettles, gridirons, feather-beds, crockery, and the family Bible, Watts's Psalmsand Hymns, and Webster's Spelling-book--the lares and penates of thehousehold. Others started in ox-carts, and trudged on at the rate often miles a day. . . . Many of these persons were in a state ofpoverty, and begged their way as they went. Some died before theyreached the expected Canaan; many perished after their arrival fromfatigue and privation; and others from the fever and ague, which wasthen certain to attack the new settlers. It was, I think, in 1818 thatI published a small tract entitled, _'Tother Side of Ohio_--that is, the other view, in contrast to the popular notion that it was theparadise of the world. It was written by Dr. Hand--a talented youngphysician of Berlin--who had made a visit to the West about these days. It consisted mainly of vivid but painful pictures of the accidents andincidents attending this wholesale migration. The roads over theAlleghanies, between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, were then rude, steep, and dangerous, and some of the more precipitous slopes wereconsequently strewn with the carcasses of wagons, carts, horses, oxen, which had made shipwreck in their perilous descents. "

But in spite of the hardships of the settler's life the spirit of thattime, as reflected in its writings, was a hopeful and a light-heartedone. 

 "Westward the course of empire takes its way, "

runs the famous line from Berkeley's poem on America. The NewEnglanders who removed to the Western Reserve went there to betterthemselves; and their children found themselves the owners of broadacres of virgin soil in place of the stony hill pastures of Berkshireand Litchfield. There was an attraction, too, about the wild, freelife of the frontiersman, with all its perils and discomforts. Thelife of Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky--that "dark and bloodyground"--is a genuine romance. Hardly less picturesque was the oldriver life of the Ohio boatmen, before the coming of steam banishedtheir queer craft from the water. Between 1810 and 1840 the center ofpopulation in the United States had moved from the Potomac to theneighborhood of Clarksburg, in West Virginia, and the population itselfhad increased from seven to seventeen millions. The gain was madepartly in the East and South, but the general drift was westward. During the years now under review the following new States wereadmitted, in the order named: Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan. Kentucky and Tennessee had beenmade States in the last years of the eighteenth century, andLouisiana--acquired by purchase from France--in 1812. 

The settlers, in their westward march, left large tracts of wildernessbehind them. They took up first the rich bottomlands along the rivercourses, the Ohio and Miami and Licking, and later the valleys of theMississippi and Missouri and the shores of the great lakes. But therestill remained backwoods in New York and Pennsylvania, though thecities of New York and Philadelphia had each a population of more thanone hundred thousand in 1815. When the Erie Canal was opened, in 1825, it ran through a primitive forest. N. P. Willis, who went by canal toBuffalo and Niagara in 1827, describes the houses and stores atRochester as standing among the burnt stumps left by the firstsettlers. In the same year that saw the opening of this greatwater-way, the Indian tribes, numbering now about one hundred andthirty thousand souls, were moved across the Mississippi. Their powerhad been broken by General Hamson's victory over Tecumseh at the battleof Tippecanoe, in 1811, and they were in fact mere remnants andfragments of the race which had hung upon the skirts of civilizationand disputed the advance of the white man for two centuries. It wasnot until some years later than this that railroads began to take animportant share in opening up new country. 

The restless energy, the love of adventure, the sanguine anticipationwhich characterized American thought at this time, the picturesquecontrasts to be seen in each mushroom town where civilization wasencroaching on the raw edge of the wilderness--all these foundexpression, not only in such well-known books as Cooper's _Pioneers_, 1823, and Irving's _Tour on the Prairies_, 1835, but in the minorliterature which is read to-day, if at all, not for its own sake, butfor the light that it throws on the history of national development: insuch books as Paulding's story of _Westward-Ho!_ and his poem, _TheBackwoodsman_, 1818; or as Timothy Flint's _Recollections_, 1826, andhis _Geography and History of the Mississippi Valley_, 1827. It wasnot an age of great books, but it was an age of large ideas andexpanding prospects. The new consciousness of empire uttered itselfhastily, crudely, ran into buncombe, "spread-eagleism, " and other noisyforms of patriotic exultation; but it was thoroughly democratic andAmerican. Though literature--or at least the best literature of thetime--was not yet emancipated from English models, thought and life, atany rate, were no longer in bondage--no longer provincial. And it issignificant that the party in office during these years was theDemocratic, the party which had broken most completely withconservative traditions. The famous "Monroe doctrine" was apronunciamento of this aggressive democracy, and though the Federalistsreturned to power for a single term, under John Quincy Adams (1825-29), Andrew Jackson received the largest number of electoral votes, andAdams was only chosen by the House of Representatives in the absence ofa majority vote for any one candidate. At the close of his term "OldHickory, " the hero of the people, the most characteristicallydemocratic of our presidents, and the first backwoodsman who enteredthe White House, was borne into office on a wave of popular enthusiasm. We have now arrived at the time when American literature, in the higherand stricter sense of the term, really began to have an existence. S. G. Goodrich, who settled at Hartford as a bookseller and publisher in1818, says, in his _Recollections_: "About this time I began to thinkof trying to bring out original American works. . . . The generalimpression was that we had not, and could not have, a literature. Itwas the precise point at which Sidney Smith had uttered that bittertaunt in the _Edinburgh Review_, 'Who reads an American book?' . . . It was positively injurious to the commercial credit of a bookseller toundertake American works. " Washington Irving (1783-1859) was the firstAmerican author whose books, as _books_, obtained recognition abroad;whose name was thought worthy of mention beside the names of Englishcontemporary authors, like Byron, Scott, and Coleridge. He was alsothe first American writer whose writings are still read for their ownsake. We read Mather's _Magnalia_, and Franklin's _Autobiography_, andTrumbull's _McFingal_--if we read them at all--as history, and to learnabout the times or the men. But we read the _Sketch Book_, and_Knickerbocker's History of New York_, and the _Conquest of Granada_for themselves and for the pleasure that they give as pieces ofliterary art. 

We have arrived, too, at a time when we may apply a more cosmopolitanstandard to the works of American writers, and may disregard many aminor author whose productions would have cut some figure had they cometo light amid the poverty of our colonial age. Hundreds of theseforgotten names, with specimens of their unread writings, are consignedto a limbo of immortality in the pages of Duyckinck's _Cyclopedia_ andof Griswold's _Poets of America_ and _Prose Writers of America_. Wemay select here for special mention, and as most representative of thethought of their time, the names of Irving, Cooper, Webster, andChanning. 

A generation was now coming upon the stage who could recall no othergovernment in this country than the government of the United States, and to whom the Revolutionary War was but a tradition. Born in thevery year of the peace, it was a part of Irving's mission, by thesympathetic charm of his writings and by the cordial recognition whichhe won in both countries, to allay the soreness which the second war, of 1812-15, had left between England and America. He was well fittedfor the task of mediator. Conservative by nature, early drawn to thevenerable worship of the Episcopal Church, retrospective in his tastes, with a preference for the past and its historic associations, which, even in young America, led him to invest the Hudson and the regionabout New York with a legendary interest, he wrote of American themesin an English fashion, and interpreted to an American public the mellowattractiveness that he found in the life and scenery of Old England. He lived in both countries, and loved them both; and it is hard to saywhether Irving is more of an English or of an American writer. Hisfirst visit to Europe, in 1804-6, occupied nearly two years. From 1815to 1832 he was abroad continuously, and his "domicile, " as the lawyerssay, during these seventeen years was really in England, though aportion of his time was spent upon the Continent, and severalsuccessive years in Spain, where he engaged upon the _Life ofColumbus_, the _Conquest of Granada_, the _Companions of Columbus_, andthe _Alhambra_, all published between 1828 and 1832. From 1842 to 1846he was again in Spain as American minister at Madrid. 

Irving was the last and greatest of the Addisonians. His boyishletters, signed "Jonathan Oldstyle, " contributed in 1802 to hisbrother's newspaper, the _Morning Chronicle_, were, like Franklin's_Busybody_, close imitations of the _Spectator_. To the same familybelonged his _Salmagundi_ papers, 1807, a series of town-satires on NewYork society, written in conjunction with his brother William and withJames K. Paulding. The little tales, essays, and sketches whichcompose the _Sketch Book_ were written in England, and published inAmerica, in periodical numbers, in 1819-20. In this, which is in somerespects his best book, he still maintained that attitude ofobservation and spectatorship taught him by Addison. The volume had amotto taken from Burton: "I have no wife nor children, good or bad, toprovide for--a mere spectator of other men's fortunes, " etc. ; and "TheAuthor's Account of Himself, " began in true Addisonian fashion: "I wasalways fond of visiting new scenes and observing strange characters andmanners. "

But though never violently "American, " like some later writers who haveconsciously sought to throw off the trammels of English tradition, Irving was in a real way original. His most distinct addition to ournational literature was in his creation of what has been called "theKnickerbocker legend. " He was the first to make use, for literarypurposes, of the old Dutch traditions which clustered about theromantic scenery of the Hudson. Colonel T. W. Higginson, in his_History of the United States_, tells how "Mrs. Josiah Quincy, sailingup that river in 1786, when Irving was a child three years old, recordsthat the captain of the sloop had a legend, either supernatural ortraditional, for every scene, 'and not a mountain reared its headunconnected with some marvelous story. '" The material thus at handIrving shaped into his _Knickerbocker's History of New York_, into theimmortal story of _Rip Van Winkle_ and the _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_(both published in the _Sketch Book_), and into later additions to thesame realm of fiction, such as _Dolph Heyliger_ in _Bracebridge Hall_, the _Money Diggers_, _Wolfert Webber_, and _Kidd the Pirate_, in the_Tales of a Traveler_, and some of the miscellanies from the_Knickerbocker Magazine_, collected into a volume, in 1855, under thetitle of _Wolfert's Roost_. 

The book which made Irving's reputation was his _Knickerbocker'sHistory of New York_, 1809, a burlesque chronicle, making fun of theold Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, and attributed, by a familiar andnow somewhat threadbare device, [1] to a little old gentleman namedDiedrich Knickerbocker, whose manuscript had come into the editor'shands. The book was gravely dedicated to the New York HistoricalSociety, and it is said to have been quoted, as authentic history, by acertain German scholar named Goeller, in a note on a passage inThucydides. This story, though well vouched, is hard of belief; for_Knickerbocker_, though excellent fooling, has nothing of the graveirony of Swift in his _Modest Proposal_ or of Defoe in his _Short Waywith Dissenters_. Its mock-heroic intention is as transparent as inFielding's parodies of Homer, which it somewhat resembles, particularlyin the delightfully absurd description of the mustering of the clansunder Peter Stuyvesant and the attack on the Swedish Fort Christina. _Knickerbocker's History of New York_ was a real addition to the comicliterature of the world, a work of genuine humor, original and vital. Walter Scott said that it reminded him closely of Swift, and hadtouches resembling Sterne. It is not necessary to claim for Irving'slittle masterpiece a place beside _Gulliver's Travels_ and _TristramShandy_. But it was, at least, the first American book in the lighterdepartments of literature which needed no apology and stood squarely onits own legs. It was written, too, at just the right time. AlthoughNew Amsterdam had become New York as early as 1664, the impress of itsfirst settlers, with their quaint conservative ways, was still upon itwhen Irving was a boy. The descendants of the Dutch families formed adefinite element not only in Manhattan, but all up along the kills ofthe Hudson, at Albany, at Schenectady, in Westchester County, atHoboken, and Communipaw, localities made familiar to him in many aramble and excursion. He lived to see the little provincial town ofhis birth grow into a great metropolis, in which all nationalcharacteristics were blended together, and a tide of immigration fromEurope and New England flowed over the old landmarks and obliteratedthem utterly. 

Although Irving was the first to reveal to his countrymen the literarypossibilities of their early history it must be acknowledged that withmodern American life he had little sympathy. He hated politics, and inthe restless democratic movement of the time, as we have described it, he found no inspiration. This moderate and placid gentleman, with hisdistrust of all kinds of fanaticism, had no liking for the Puritans orfor their descendants, the New England Yankees, if we may judge fromhis sketch of Ichabod Crane in the _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_. Hisgenius was reminiscent, and his imagination, like Scott's, was thehistoric imagination. In crude America his fancy took refuge in thepicturesque aspects of the past, in "survivals" like the KnickerbockerDutch and the Acadian peasants, whose isolated communities on the lowerMississippi he visited and described. He turned naturally to the ripecivilization of the Old World, He was our first picturesque tourist, the first "American in Europe. " He rediscovered England, whose ancientchurches, quiet landscapes, memory-haunted cities, Christmascelebrations, and rural festivals had for him an unfailing attraction. With pictures of these, for the most part, he filled the pages of the_Sketch Book_ and _Bracebridge Hall_, 1822. Delightful as are theseEnglish sketches, in which the author conducts his reader to WindsorCastle, or Stratford-on-Avon, or the Boar's Head Tavern, or sits besidehim on the box of the old English stage-coach, or shares with him theYule-tide cheer at the ancient English country-house, their interesthas somewhat faded. The pathos of the _Broken Heart_ and the _Pride ofthe Village_, the mild satire of the _Art of Book-Making_, the ratherobvious reflections in _Westminster Abbey_ are not exactly to the tasteof this generation. They are the literature of leisure andretrospection; and already Irving's gentle elaboration, the refined andslightly artificial beauty of his style, and his persistently genialand sympathetic attitude have begun to pall upon readers who demand amore nervous and accentuated kind of writing. It is felt that a littleroughness, a little harshness, even, would give relief to his picturesof life. There is, for instance, something a little irritating in theold-fashioned courtliness of his manner toward women; and one readswith a certain impatience smoothly punctuated passages like thefollowing: "As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliageabout the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when thehardy plant is rifted by the thunder-bolt, cling round it with itscaressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs, so is itbeautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependentand ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solacewhen smitten with sudden calamity, winding herself into the ruggedrecesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head andbinding up the broken heart. "

Irving's gifts were sentiment and humor, with an imaginationsufficiently fertile and an observation sufficiently acute to supportthose two main qualities, but inadequate to the service of strongpassion or subtle thinking, though his pathos, indeed, sometimesreached intensity. His humor was always delicate and kindly; hissentiment never degenerated into sentimentality. His diction wasgraceful and elegant--too elegant, perhaps; and, in his modesty, heattributed the success of his books in England to the astonishment ofEnglishmen that an American could write good English. 

In Spanish history and legend Irving found a still newer and richerfield for his fancy to work upon. He had not the analytic andphilosophical mind of a great historian, and the merits of his_Conquest of Granada_ and _Life of Columbus_ are rather_belletristisch_ than scientific. But he brought to these undertakingsthe same eager love of the romantic past which had determined thecharacter of his writings in America and England, and theresult--whether we call it history or romance--is at all eventscharming as literature. His _Life of Washington_--completed in1859--was his _magnum opus_, and is accepted as standard authority. _Mahomet and His Successors_, 1850, was comparatively a failure. Butof all Irving's biographies his _Life of Oliver Goldsmith_, 1849, wasthe most spontaneous and perhaps the best. He did not impose it uponhimself as a task, but wrote it from a native and loving sympathy withhis subject, and it is, therefore, one of the choicest literary memoirsin the language. 

When Irving returned to America, in 1832, he was the recipient ofalmost national honors. He had received the medal of the Royal Societyof Literature and the degree of D. C. L. From Oxford University, and hadmade American literature known and respected abroad. In his modesthome at Sunnyside, on the banks of the river over which he had been thefirst to throw the witchery of poetry and romance, he was attended tothe last by the admiring affection of his countrymen. He had the loveand praises of the foremost English writers of his own generation andthe generation which followed--of Scott, Byron, Coleridge, Thackeray, and Dickens, some of whom had been among his personal friends. He isnot the greatest of American authors, but the influence of his writingsis sweet and wholesome, and it is in many ways fortunate that the firstAmerican man of letters who made himself heard in Europe should havebeen in all particulars a gentleman. 

Connected with Irving, at least by name and locality, were a number ofauthors who resided in the city of New York, and who are known as theKnickerbocker writers, perhaps because they were contributors to the_Knickerbocker Magazine_. One of these was James K. Paulding, aconnection of Irving by marriage, and his partner in the _Salmagundi_papers. Paulding became Secretary of the Navy under Van Buren, andlived down to the year 1860. He was a voluminous author, but hiswritings had no power of continuance, and are already obsolete, withthe possible exception of his novel, the _Dutchman's Fireside_, 1831. 

A finer spirit than Paulding was Joseph Rodman Drake, a young poet ofgreat promise, who died in 1820, at the age of twenty-five. Drake'spatriotic lyric, the _American Flag_, is certainly the most spiritedthing of the kind in our poetic literature, and greatly superior tosuch national anthems as _Hail Columbia_ and the _Star-SpangledBanner_. His _Culprit Fay_, published in 1819, was the best poem thathad yet appeared in America, if we except Bryant's _Thanatopsis_, whichwas three years the elder. The _Culprit Fay_ was a fairy story, inwhich, following Irving's lead, Drake undertook to throw the glamour ofpoetry about the Highlands of the Hudson. Edgar Poe said that the poemwas fanciful rather than imaginative; but it is prettily and evenbrilliantly fanciful, and has maintained its popularity to the presenttime. Such verse as the following--which seems to show that Drake hadbeen reading Coleridge's _Christabel_, published three yearsbefore--was something new in American poetry:

 "The winds are whist and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katydid, And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and woe, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in her glances glow. "

Here we have, at last, the whip-poor-will, an American bird, and notthe conventional lark or nightingale, although the elves of the OldWorld seem scarcely at home on the banks of the Hudson. Drake's memoryhas been kept fresh not only by his own poetry, but by the beautifulelegy written by his friend Fitz-Greene Halleck, the first stanza ofwhich is universally known;

 "Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days; None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. "

Halleck was born in Guilford, Connecticut, whither he retired in 1849, and resided there till his death in 1867. But his literary career isidentified with New York. He was associated with Drake in writing the_Croaker Papers_, a series of humorous and satirical verses contributedin 1814 to the _Evening Post_. These were of a merely local andtemporary interest; but Halleck's fine ode, _Marco Bozzaris_--thoughdeclaimed until it has become hackneyed--gives him a sure title toremembrance; and his _Alnwick Castle_, a monody, half serious and halfplayful on the contrast between feudal associations and modern life, has much of that pensive lightness which characterizes Praed's best_vers de societé_. 

A friend of Drake and Halleck was James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), the first American novelist of distinction, and, if a popularity whichhas endured for nearly three quarters of a century is any test, stillthe most successful of all American novelists. Cooper was far moreintensely American than Irving, and his books reached an even widerpublic. "They are published as soon as he produces them, " said Morse, the electrician, in 1833, "in thirty-four different places in Europe. They have been seen by American travelers in the languages of Turkeyand Persia, in Constantinople, in Egypt, at Jerusalem, at Ispahan. "Cooper wrote altogether too much; he published, besides his fictions, a_Naval History of the United States_, a series of naval biographies, works of travel, and a great deal of controversial matter. He wroteover thirty novels, the greater part of which are little better thantrash, and tedious trash at that. This is especially true of his_tendenz_ novels and his novels of society. He was a man of stronglymarked individuality, fiery, pugnacious, sensitive to criticism, andabounding in prejudices. He was embittered by the scurrilous attacksmade upon him by a portion of the American press, and spent a greatdeal of time and energy in conducting libel suits against thenewspapers. In the same spirit he used fiction as a vehicle for attackupon the abuses and follies of American life. Nearly all of hisnovels, written with this design, are worthless. Nor was Cooper wellequipped by nature and temperament for depicting character and passionin social life. Even in his best romances his heroines and his"leading juveniles"--to borrow a term from the amateur stage--areinsipid and conventional. He was no satirist, and his humor was not ofa high order. He was a rapid and uneven writer, and, unlike Irving, hehad no style. 

Where Cooper was great was in the story, in the invention of incidentsand plots, in a power of narrative and description in tales of wildadventure which keeps the reader in breathless excitement to the end ofthe book. He originated the novel of the sea and the novel of thewilderness. He created the Indian of literature; and in this, hispeculiar field, although he has had countless imitators, he has had noequals. Cooper's experiences had prepared him well for the kingship ofthis new realm in the world of fiction. His childhood was passed onthe borders of Otsego Lake, when central New York was still awilderness, with boundless forests stretching westward, broken onlyhere and there by the clearings of the pioneers. He was taken fromcollege (Yale) when still a lad, and sent to sea in a merchant vessel, before the mast. Afterward he entered the navy and did duty on thehigh seas and upon Lake Ontario, then surrounded by virgin forests. Hemarried and resigned his commission in 1811, just before the outbreakof the war with England, so that he missed the opportunity of seeingactive service in any of those engagements on the ocean and our greatlakes which were so glorious to American arms. But he always retainedan active interest in naval affairs. 

His first successful novel was _The Spy_, 1821, a tale of theRevolutionary War, the scene of which was laid in Westchester County, N. Y. , where the author was then residing. The hero of this story, Harvey Birch, was one of the most skillfully drawn figures on hiscanvas. In 1833 he published the _Pioneers_, a work somewhat overladenwith description, in which he drew for material upon his boyishrecollections of frontier life at Cooperstown. This was the first ofthe series of five romances known as the _Leatherstocking Tales_. Theothers were the _Last of the Mohicans_, 1826; the _Prairie_, 1827; the_Pathfinder_, 1840; and the _Deerslayer_, 1841. The hero of thisseries, Natty Bumpo, or "Leatherstocking, " was Cooper's one greatcreation in the sphere of character, his most original addition to theliterature of the world in the way of a new human type. This backwoodsphilosopher--to the conception of whom the historic exploits of DanielBoone perhaps supplied some hints; unschooled, but moved by nobleimpulses and a natural sense of piety and justice; passionatelyattached to the wilderness, and following its westering edge even untothe prairies--this man of the woods was the first real American infiction. Hardly less individual and vital were the various types ofIndian character, in Chingachgook, Uncas, Hist, and the Huron warriors. Inferior to these, but still vigorously though somewhat roughly drawn, were the waifs and strays of civilization, whom duty, or the hope ofgain, or the love of adventure, or the outlawry of crime had driven tothe wilderness--the solitary trapper, the reckless young frontiersman, the officers and men of out-post garrisons. Whether Cooper's Indianwas the real being, or an idealized and rather melodramatic version ofthe truth, has been a subject of dispute. However this be, he hastaken his place in the domain of art, and it is safe to say that hisstanding there is secure. No boy will ever give him up. 

Equally good with the _Leatherstocking_ novels, and equally national, were Cooper's tales of the sea, or at least the best two of them--the_Pilot_, 1833, founded upon the daring exploits of John Paul Jones, andthe _Red Rover_, 1828. But here, though Cooper still holds the sea, hehas had to admit competitors; and Britannia, who rules the waves insong, has put in some claim to a share in the domain of nauticalfiction in the persons of Mr. W. Clark Russell and others. ThoughCooper's novels do not meet the deeper needs of the heart and theimagination, their appeal to the universal love of a story isperennial. We devour them when we are boys, and if we do not oftenreturn to them when we are men, that is perhaps only because we haveread them before, and "know the ending. " They are good yarns for theforecastle and the camp-fire; and the scholar in his study, though hemay put the _Deerslayer_ or the _Last of the Mohicans_ away on the topshelf, will take it down now and again, and sit up half the night overit. 

Before dismissing the _belles-lettres_ writings of this period, mentionshould be made of a few poems of the fugitive kind which seem to havetaken a permanent place in popular regard. John Howard Payne, a nativeof Long Island, a wandering actor and playwright, who died Americanconsul at Tunis in 1852, wrote about 1820 for Covent Garden Theater anopera, entitled _Clari_, the libretto of which included the now famoussong of _Home, Sweet Home_. Its literary pretensions were of thehumblest kind, but it spoke a true word which touched the Anglo-Saxonheart in its tenderest spot, and, being happily married to a plaintiveair, was sold by the hundred thousand, and is evidently destined to besung forever. A like success has attended the _Old Oaken Bucket_, composed by Samuel Woodworth, a printer and journalist fromMassachusetts, whose other poems, of which two collections were issuedin 1818 and 1826, were soon forgotten. Richard Henry Wilde, anIrishman by birth, a gentleman of scholarly tastes and accomplishments, who wrote a great deal on Italian literature, and sat for several termsin Congress as Representative of the State of Georgia, was the authorof the favorite song, _My Life is Like the Summer Rose_. AnotherSoutherner, and a member of a distinguished Southern family, was EdwardCoate Pinkney, who served nine years in the navy, and died in 1828, atthe age of twenty-six, having published in 1825 a small volume oflyrical poems which had a fire and a grace uncommon at that time inAmerican verse. One of these, _A Health_, beginning, "I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone. "

though perhaps somewhat overpraised by Edgar Poe, has rare beauty ofthought and expression. 

John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States (1825-29), wasa man of culture and literary tastes. He published his lectures onrhetoric, delivered during his tenure of the Boylston Professorship atHarvard in 1806-9; he left a voluminous diary, which has been editedsince his death in 1848; and among his experiments in poetry is one ofconsiderable merit, entitled _The Wants of Man_, an ironical sermon onGoldsmith's text:

 "Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long. "

As this poem is a curiously close anticipation of Dr. Holmes's_Contentment_, so the very popular ballad, _Old Grimes_, written about1818, by Albert Gorton Greene, an undergraduate of Brown University inRhode Island, is in some respects an anticipation of Holmes's quaintlypathetic _Last Leaf_. 

The political literature and public oratory of the United States duringthis period, although not absolutely of less importance than that whichpreceded and followed the Declaration of Independence and the adoptionof the Constitution, demands less relative attention in a history ofliterature by reason of the growth of other departments of thought. The age was a political one, but no longer exclusively political. Thedebates of the time centered about the question of "State Rights, " andthe main forum of discussion was the old Senate chamber, then madeillustrious by the presence of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun. The slaveryquestion, which had threatened trouble, was put off for a while by theMissouri Compromise of 1820, only to break out more fiercely in thedebates on the Wilmot Proviso and the Kansas and Nebraska Bill. Meanwhile the Abolition movement had been transferred to the press andthe platform. Garrison started his _Liberator_ in 1830, and theAntislavery Society was founded in 1833. The Whig party, which hadinherited the constitutional principles of the old Federal party, advocated internal improvements at national expense and a highprotective tariff. The State Rights party, which was strongest at theSouth, opposed these views, and in 1832 South Carolina claimed theright to "nullify" the tariff imposed by the general government. Theleader of this party was John Caldwell Calhoun, a South Carolinian, whoin his speech in the United States Senate, on February 13, 1832, onNullification and the Force Bill, set forth most authoritatively the"Carolina doctrine. " Calhoun was a great debater, but hardly a greatorator. His speeches are the arguments of a lawyer and a strictconstitutionalist, severely logical, and with a sincere conviction inthe soundness of his case. Their language is free from bad rhetoric;the reasoning is cogent, but there is an absence of emotion andimagination; they contain few quotable things, and no passages ofcommanding eloquence, such as strew the orations of Webster and Burke. They are not, in short, literature. Again, the speeches of Henry Clay, of Kentucky, the leader of the Whigs, whose persuasive oratory is amatter of tradition, disappoint in the reading. The fire has gone outof them. 

Not so with Daniel Webster, the greatest of American forensic orators, if, indeed, he be not the greatest of all orators who have used theEnglish tongue. Webster's speeches are of the kind that have power tomove after the voice of the speaker is still. The thought and thepassion in them lay hold on feelings of patriotism more lasting thanthe issues of the moment. It is, indeed, true of Webster's speeches, as of all speeches, that they are known to posterity more by singlebrilliant passages than as wholes. In oratory the occasion is of theessence of the thing, and only those parts of an address which arepermanent and universal in their appeal take their place in literature. But of such detachable passages there are happily many in Webster'sorations. One great thought underlay all his public life, the thoughtof the Union--of American nationality. What in Hamilton had been aprinciple of political philosophy had become in Webster a passionateconviction. The Union was his idol, and he was intolerant of anyfaction which threatened it from any quarter, whether the Nullifiers ofSouth Carolina or the Abolitionists of the North. It is this thoughtwhich gives grandeur and elevation to all his utterances, andespecially to the wonderful peroration of his _Reply to Hayne_, on Mr. Foot's resolution touching the sale of the public lands, delivered inthe Senate on January 26, 1830, whose closing words, "Liberty andunion, now and forever, one and inseparable, " became the rallying cryof a great cause. Similar in sentiment was his famous speech of March7, 1850, _On the Constitution and the Union_, which gave so muchoffense to the extreme Antislavery party, who held with Garrison that aConstitution which protected slavery "was a league with death and acovenant with hell. " It is not claiming too much for Webster to assertthat the sentences of these and other speeches, memorized and declaimedby thousands of school-boys throughout the North, did as much as anysingle influence to train up a generation in hatred of secession, andto send into the fields of the civil war armies of men animated withthe stern resolution to fight till the last drop of blood was shed, rather than allow the Union to be dissolved. 

The figure of this great senator is one of the most imposing inAmerican annals. The masculine force of his personality impresseditself upon men of a very different stamp--upon the unworldly Emerson, and upon the captious Carlyle, whose respect was not willingly accordedto any contemporary, much less to a representative of Americandemocracy. Webster's looks and manner were characteristic. His formwas massive; his skull and jaw solid, the under-lip projecting, and themouth firmly and grimly shut; his complexion was swarthy, and hisblack, deep-set eyes, under shaggy brows, glowed with a smolderingfire. He was rather silent in society; his delivery in debate wasgrave and weighty, rather than fervid. His oratory was massive, andsometimes even ponderous. It may be questioned whether an Americanorator of to-day, with intellectual abilities equal to Webster's--ifsuch a one there were--would permit himself the use of sonorous andelaborate pictures like the famous period which follows: "On thisquestion of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, theyraised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreignconquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not tobe compared--a power which has dotted over the surface of the wholeglobe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earthwith one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs ofEngland. " The secret of this kind of oratory has been lost. Thepresent generation distrusts rhetorical ornament and likes somethingswifter, simpler, and more familiar in its speakers. But every thing, in declamation of this sort, depends on the way in which it is done. Webster did it supremely well; a smaller man would merely have madebuncombe of it. 

Among the legal orators of the time the foremost was Rufus Choate, aneloquent pleader, and, like Webster, a United States senator fromMassachusetts. Some of his speeches, though excessively rhetorical, have literary quality, and are nearly as effective in print asWebster's own. Another Massachusetts orator, Edward Everett, who inhis time was successively professor in Harvard College, Unitarianminister in Boston, editor of the _North American Review_, member ofboth houses of Congress, minister to England, governor of his State, and President of Harvard, was a speaker of great finish and elegance. His addresses were mainly of the memorial and anniversary kind, andwere rather lectures and Phi. B. K. Prolusions than speeches. Everettwas an instance of careful culture bestowed on a soil of no very greatnatural richness. It is doubtful whether his classical orations onWashington, the Republic, Bunker Hill Monument, and kindred themes, have enough of the breath of life in them to preserve them much longerin recollection. 

New England, during these years, did not take that leading part in thepurely literary development of the country which it afterward assumed. It had no names to match against those of Irving and Cooper. Drake andHalleck--slender as was their performance in point of quantity--werebetter poets than the Boston bards, Charles Sprague, whose _ShakespeareOde_, delivered at the Boston theater in 1833, was locally famous; andRichard Henry Dana, whose longish narrative poem, the _Buccaneer_, 1827, once had admirers. But Boston has at no time been without aserious intellectual life of its own, nor without a circle of highlyeducated men of literary pursuits, even in default of great geniuses. The _North American Review_, established in 1815, though it has beenwittily described as "ponderously revolving through space" for a fewyears after its foundation, did not exist in an absolute vacuum, butwas scholarly, if somewhat heavy. Webster, to be sure, was aMassachusetts man--as were Everett and Choate--but his triumphs werewon in the wider field of national politics. There was, however, amovement at this time, in the intellectual life of Boston and easternMassachusetts, which, though not immediately contributory to the finerkinds of literature, prepared the way, by its clarifying andstimulating influences, for the eminent writers of the next generation. This was the Unitarian revolt against Puritan orthodoxy, in whichWilliam Ellery Channing was the principal leader. In a community sointensely theological as New England, it was natural that any newmovement in thought should find its point of departure in the churches. Accordingly, the progressive and democratic spirit of the age, which inother parts of the country took other shapes, assumed in Massachusettsthe form of "liberal Christianity. " Arminianism, Socinianism, andother phases of anti-Trinitarian doctrine, had been latent in some ofthe Congregational churches of Massachusetts for a number of years. But about 1812 the heresy broke out openly, and within a few years fromthat date most of the oldest and wealthiest church societies of Bostonand its vicinity had gone over to Unitarianism, and Harvard College hadbeen captured too. In the controversy that ensued, and which wascarried on in numerous books, pamphlets, sermons, and periodicals, there were eminent disputants on both sides. So far as thiscontroversy was concerned with the theological doctrine of the Trinityit has no place in a history of literature. But the issue went farbeyond that. Channing asserted the dignity of human nature against theCalvinistic doctrine of innate depravity, and affirmed the rights ofhuman reason and man's capacity to judge of God. "We must start inreligion from our own souls, " he said. And in his _Moral Argumentagainst Calvinism_, 1820, he wrote: "Nothing is gained to piety bydegrading human nature, for in the competency of this nature to knowand judge of God all piety has its foundation. " In opposition toEdwards's doctrine of necessity he emphasized the freedom of the will. He maintained that the Calvinistic dogmas of original sin, fore-ordination, election by grace, and eternal punishment wereinconsistent with the divine perfection, and made God a monster. InChanning's view the great sanction of religious truth is the moralsanction, is its agreement with the laws of conscience. He was apassionate vindicator of the liberty of the individual, not only asagainst political oppression, but against the tyranny of public opinionover thought and conscience: "We were made for free action. This aloneis life, and enters into all that is good and great. " This jealouslove of freedom inspired all that he did and wrote. It led him to jointhe Antislavery party. It expressed itself in his elaboratearraignment of Napoleon in the Unitarian organ, the _ChristianExaminer_, for 1827-28; in his _Remarks on Associations_, and his paper_On the Character and Writings of John Milton_, 1826. This was hismost considerable contribution to literary criticism. It took for atext Milton's recently discovered _Treatise on Christian Doctrine_--thetendency of which was anti-Trinitarian--but it began with a generaldefense of poetry against "those who are accustomed to speak of poetryas light reading. " This would now seem a somewhat superfluousintroduction to an article in any American review. But it shows thenature of the _milieu_ through which the liberal movement in Boston hadto make its way. To re-assert the dignity and usefulness of thebeautiful arts was, perhaps, the chief service which the MassachusettsUnitarians rendered to humanism. The traditional prejudice of thePuritans against the ornamental side of life had to be softened beforepolite literature could find a congenial atmosphere in New England. InChanning's _Remarks on National Literature_, reviewing a work publishedin 1823, he asks the question, "Do we possess what may be called anational literature?" and answers it, by implication at least, in thenegative. That we do now possess a national literature is in greatpart due to the influence of Channing and his associates, although hisown writings, being in the main controversial, and, therefore, oftemporary interest, may not themselves take rank among the permanenttreasures of that literature. 

1. Washington Irving. _Knickerbocker's History of New York_. _TheSketch Book_. _Bracebridge Hall_. _Tales of a Traveler_. _TheAlhambra_. _Life of Oliver Goldsmith_. 

2. James Fenimore Cooper. _The Spy_. _The Pilot_. _The Red Rover_. _The Leather-stocking Tales_. 

3. Daniel Webster. _Great Speeches and Orations_. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1879. 

4. William Ellery Channing. _The Character and Writings of JohnMilton_. _The Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte_. _Slavery_. [Vols. I and II of the _Works of William E. Channing_. Boston: JamesMunroe & Co. 1841. ]

5. Joseph Rodman Drake. _The Culprit Fay_. _The American Flag_. [_Selected Poems_. New York. 1835. ]

6. Fitz-Greene Halleck. _Marco Bozzaris_. _Alnwick Castle_. _On theDeath of Drake_. [Poems. New York. 1827. ]

[1]Compare Carlyle's Herr Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, in _Sartor Resartus_, the author of the famous "Clothes Philosophy. "

[Transcriber's Note: Earlier in this chapter is the abbreviation "Phi. B. K. ". The "Phi" replaces the actual Greek character that was in theoriginal text. ]

CHAPTER IV. 

THE CONCORD WRITERS. 

1837-1861. 

There has been but one movement in the history of the American mindwhich has given to literature a group of writers having coherenceenough to merit the name of a school. This was the great humanitarianmovement, or series of movements, in New England, which, beginning inthe Unitarianism of Channing, ran through its later phase intranscendentalism, and spent its last strength in the antislaveryagitation and the enthusiasms of the civil war. The second stage ofthis intellectual and social revolt was transcendentalism, of whichEmerson wrote, in 1842: "The history of genius and of religion in thesetimes will be the history of this tendency. " It culminated about1840-41 in the establishment of the _Dial_ and the Brook FarmCommunity, although Emerson had given the signal a few years before inhis little volume entitled _Nature_, 1836, his Phi Beta Kappa addressat Harvard on the _American Scholar_, 1837, and his address in 1838before the Divinity School at Cambridge. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)was the prophet of the sect, and Concord was its Mecca; but theinfluence of the new ideas was not confined to the little group ofprofessed transcendentalists; it extended to all the young writerswithin reach, who struck their roots deeper into the soil that it hadloosened and freshened. We owe to it, in great measure, not merelyEmerson, Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Thoreau, but Hawthorne, Lowell, Whittier, and Holmes. 

In its strictest sense transcendentalism was a restatement of theidealistic philosophy, and an application of its beliefs to religion, nature, and life. But in a looser sense, and as including the moreoutward manifestations which drew popular attention most strongly, itwas the name given to that spirit of dissent and protest, of universalinquiry and experiment, which marked the third and fourth decades ofthis century in America, and especially in New England. The movementwas contemporary with political revolutions in Europe and with thepreaching of many novel gospels in religion, in sociology, in science, education, medicine, and hygiene. New sects were formed, like theSwedenborgians, Universalists, Spiritualists, Millerites, SecondAdventists, Shakers, Mormons, and Come-outers, some of whom believed intrances, miracles, and direct revelations from the divine Spirit;others in the quick coming of Christ, as deduced from the opening ofthe seals and the number of the beast in the Apocalypse; and stillothers in the reorganization of society and of the family on adifferent basis. New systems of education were tried, suggested by thewritings of the Swiss reformer, Pestalozzi, and others. Thepseudo-sciences of mesmerism and of phrenology, as taught by Gall andSpurzheim, had numerous followers. In medicine, homeopathy, hydropathy, and what Dr. Holmes calls "kindred delusions, " made manydisciples. Numbers of persons, influenced by the doctrines of Grahamand other vegetarians, abjured the use of animal food, as injurious notonly to health but to a finer spirituality. Not a few refused to voteor pay taxes. The writings of Fourier and Saint-Simon were translated, and societies were established where co-operation and a community ofgoods should take the place of selfish competition. 

About the year 1840 there were some thirty of these "phalansteries" inAmerica, many of which had their organs in the shape of weekly ormonthly journals, which advocated the principle of Association. Thebest known of these was probably the _Harbinger_, the mouth-piece ofthe famous Brook Farm Community, which was founded at West Roxbury, Mass. , in 1841, and lasted till 1847. The head man of Brook Farm wasGeorge Ripley, a Unitarian clergyman, who had resigned his pulpit inBoston to go into the movement, and who after its failure became andremained for many years literary editor of the _New York Tribune_. Among his associates were Charles A. Dana--now the editor of the_Sun_--Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others not unknown tofame. The _Harbinger_, which ran from 1845 to 1849--two years afterthe break-up of the community--had among its contributors many who werenot Brook Farmers, but who sympathized more or less with theexperiment. Of the number were Horace Greeley, Dr. F. H. Hedge--whodid so much to introduce American readers to German literature--J. S. Dwight, the musical critic, C. P. Cranch, the poet, and younger men, like G. W. Curtis and T. W. Higginson. A reader of to-day, lookinginto an odd volume of the _Harbinger_, will find in it some stimulatingwriting, together with a great deal of unintelligible talk about"Harmonic Unity, " "Love Germination, " and other matters now fallensilent. The most important literary result of this experiment at"plain living and high thinking, " with its queer mixture of culture andagriculture, was Hawthorne's _Blithedale Romance_, which has for itsbackground an idealized picture of the community life; whose heroine, Zenobia, has touches of Margaret Fuller; and whose hero, with his hobbyof prison reform, was a type of the one-idea'd philanthropists thatabounded in such an environment. Hawthorne's attitude was always inpart one of reserve and criticism, an attitude which is apparent in thereminiscences of Brook Farm in his _American Note Books_, wherein hespeaks with a certain resentment of "Miss Fuller's transcendentalheifer, " which hooked the other cows, and was evidently to Hawthorne'smind not unsymbolic in this respect of Miss Fuller herself. 

It was the day of seers and "Orphic" utterances; the air was fall ofthe enthusiasm of humanity and thick with philanthropic projects andplans for the regeneration of the universe. The figure of thewild-eyed, long-haired reformer--the man with a panacea--the "crank" ofour later terminology--became a familiar one. He abounded atnon-resistance conventions and meetings of universal peace societiesand of woman's rights associations. The movement had its grotesqueaspects, which Lowell has described in his essay on Thoreau. "Bran hadits apostles and the pre-sartorial simplicity of Adam its martyrs, tailored impromptu from the tar-pot. . . . Not a few impecuniouszealots abjured the use of money (unless earned by other people), professing to live on the internal revenues of the spirit. . . . Communities were established where every thing was to be common butcommon sense. "

This ferment has long since subsided, and much of what was thenseething has gone off in vapor or other volatile products. But somevery solid matters have also been precipitated, some crystals of poetrytranslucent, symmetrical, enduring. The immediate practical outcomewas disappointing, and the external history of the agitation is arecord of failed experiments, spurious sciences, Utopian philosophies, and sects founded only to dwindle away or to be re-absorbed into someform of orthodoxy. In the eyes of the conservative, or theworldly-minded, or of the plain people who could not understand theenigmatic utterances of the reformers, the dangerous or ludicrous sidesof transcendentalism were naturally uppermost. Nevertheless themovement was but a new avatar of the old Puritan spirit; its moralearnestness, its spirituality, its tenderness for the individualconscience. Puritanism, too, in its day had run into grotesqueextremes. Emerson bore about the same relation to the absurderout-croppings of transcendentalism that Milton bore to the New Lights, Ranters, Fifth Monarchy Men, etc. , of his time. There is in him thatmingling of idealism with an abiding sanity, and even a Yankeeshrewdness, which characterizes the race. The practical, inventive, calculating, money-getting side of the Yankee has been madesufficiently obvious. But the deep heart of New England is full ofdreams, mysticism, romance:

 "And in the day of sacrifice, When heroes piled the pyre, The dismal Massachusetts ice Burned more than others' fire. "

The one element which the odd and eccentric developments of thismovement shared in common with the real philosophy of transcendentalismwas the rejection of authority and the appeal to the privateconsciousness as the sole standard of truth and right. This principlecertainly lay in the ethical systems of Kant and Fichte, the greattranscendentalists of Germany. It had been strongly asserted byChanning. Nay, it was the starting-point of Puritanism itself, whichhad drawn away from the ceremonial religion of the English Church, andby its Congregational system had made each church society independentin doctrine and worship. And although Puritan orthodoxy in New Englandhad grown rigid and dogmatic it had never used the weapons ofobscurantism. By encouraging education to the utmost, it had shown itswillingness to submit its beliefs to the fullest discussion and had putinto the hands of dissent the means with which to attack them. 

In its theological aspect transcendentalism was a departure fromconservative Unitarianism, as that had been from Calvinism. FromEdwards to Channing, from Channing to Emerson and Theodore Parker, there was a natural and logical unfolding; not logical in the sensethat Channing accepted Edwards's premises and pushed them out to theirconclusions, or that Parker accepted all of Channing's premises, but inthe sense that the rigid pushing out of Edwards's premises into theirconclusions by himself and his followers had brought about a moral_reductio ad absurdum_ and a state of opinion against which Channingrebelled; and that Channing, as it seemed to Parker, stopped short inthe carrying out of his own principles. Thus the "ChanningUnitarians, " while denying that Christ was God, had held that he was ofdivine nature, was the Son of God, and had existed before he came intothe world. While rejecting the doctrine of the "vicarious sacrifice"they maintained that Christ was a mediator and intercessor, and thathis supernatural nature was testified by miracles. For Parker andEmerson it was easy to take the step to the assertion that Christ was agood and great man, divine only in the sense that God possessed himmore fully than any other man known in history; that it was hispreaching and example that brought salvation to men, and not anyspecial mediation or intercession, and that his own words and acts, andnot miracles, are the only and the sufficient witness to his mission. In the view of the transcendentalists Christ was as human as Buddha, Socrates, or Confucius, and the Bible was but one among the "EthnicalScriptures" or sacred writings of the peoples, passages from which werepublished in the transcendental organ, the _Dial_. As against thesenew views Channing Unitarianism occupied already a conservativeposition. The Unitarians as a body had never been very numerousoutside of eastern Massachusetts. They had a few churches in New Yorkand in the larger cities and towns elsewhere, but the sect, as such, was a local one. Orthodoxy made a sturdy fight against the heresy, under leaders like Leonard Woods and Moses Stuart, of Andover, andLyman Beecher, of Connecticut. In the neighboring State ofConnecticut, for example, there was until lately, for a period ofseveral years, no distinctly Unitarian congregation worshiping in achurch edifice of its own. On the other hand, the Unitarians claimed, with justice, that their opinions had, to a great extent, modified thetheology of the orthodox churches. The writings of Horace Bushnell, ofHartford, one of the most eminent Congregational divines, approachUnitarianism in their interpretation of the doctrine of the Atonement;and the "progressive orthodoxy" of Andover is certainly not theCalvinism of Thomas Hooker or of Jonathan Edwards. But it seemed tothe transcendentalists that conservative Unitarianism was too negativeand "cultured, " and Margaret Fuller complained of the coldness of theBoston pulpits; while, contrariwise, the central thought oftranscendentalism, that the soul has an immediate connection with God, was pronounced by Dr. Channing a "crude speculation. " This was thethought of Emerson's address in 1838 before the Cambridge DivinitySchool, and it was at once made the object of attack by conservativeUnitarians like Henry Ware and Andrews Norton. The latter, in anaddress before the same audience, on the _Latest Form of Infidelity_, said: "Nothing is left that can be called Christianity if itsmiraculous character be denied. . . . There can be no intuition, nodirect perception, of the truth of Christianity. " And in a pamphletsupporting the same side of the question he added: "It is not anintelligible error, but a mere absurdity, to maintain that we areconscious, or have an intuitive knowledge, of the being of God, of ourown immortality, . . . Or of any other fact of religion. " Ripley andParker replied in Emerson's defense; but Emerson himself would never bedrawn into controversy. He said that he could not argue. He_announced_ truths; his method was that of the seer, not of thedisputant. In 1832 Emerson, who was a Unitarian clergyman, anddescended from eight generations of clergymen, had resigned thepastorate of the Second Church of Boston because he could notconscientiously administer the sacrament of the communion--which heregarded as a mere act of commemoration--in the sense in which it wasunderstood by his parishioners. Thenceforth, though he sometimesoccupied Unitarian pulpits, and was, indeed, all his life a kind of"lay preacher, " he never assumed the pastorate of a church. Therepresentative of transcendentalism in the pulpit was Theodore Parker, an eloquent preacher, an eager debater, and a prolific writer on manysubjects, whose collected works fill fourteen volumes. Parker was aman of strongly human traits, passionate, independent, intenselyreligious, but intensely radical, who made for himself a large personalfollowing. The more advanced wing of the Unitarians were called, afterhim, "Parkerites. " Many of the Unitarian churches refused to"fellowship" with him; and the large congregation, or audience, whichassembled in Music Hall to hear his sermons was stigmatized as a"boisterous assembly" which came to hear Parker preach irreligion. 

It has been said that, on its philosophical side, New Englandtranscendentalism was a restatement of idealism. The impulse came fromGermany, from the philosophical writings of Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, andSchelling, and from the works of Coleridge and Carlyle, who haddomesticated German thought in England. In Channing's _Remarks on aNational Literature_, quoted in our last chapter, the essayist urgedthat our scholars should study the authors of France and Germany as onemeans of emancipating American letters from a slavish dependence onBritish literature. And in fact German literature began, not longafter, to be eagerly studied in New England. Emerson published anAmerican edition of Carlyle's _Miscellanies_, including his essays onGerman writers that had appeared in England between 1822 and 1830. In1838 Ripley began to publish _Specimens of Foreign StandardLiterature_, which extended to fourteen volumes. In his work oftranslating and supplying introductions to the matter selected, he washelped by Ripley, Margaret Fuller, John S. Dwight, and others who hadmore or less connection with the transcendental movement. 

The definition of the new faith given by Emerson in his lecture on the_Transcendentalist_, 1842, is as follows; "What is popularly calledtranscendentalism among us is idealism. . . . The idealism of thepresent day acquired the name of transcendental from the use of thatterm by Immanuel Kant, who replied to the skeptical philosophy ofLocke, which insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which wasnot previously in the experience of the senses, by showing that therewas a very important class of ideas, or imperative forms, which did notcome by experience, but through which experience was acquired; thatthese were intuitions of the mind itself, and he denominated them_transcendental_ forms. " Idealism denies the independent existence ofmatter. Transcendentalism claims for the innate ideas of God and thesoul a higher assurance of reality than for the knowledge of theoutside world derived through the senses. Emerson shares the "nobledoubt" of idealism. He calls the universe a shade, a dream, "thisgreat apparition. " "It is a sufficient account of that appearance wecall the world, " he wrote in _Nature_, "that God will teach a humanmind, and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of congruentsensations which we call sun and moon, man and woman, house and trade. In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of mysenses, to know whether the impressions on me correspond with outlyingobjects, what difference does it make whether Orion is up there inheaven or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?" Onthe other hand, our evidence of the existence, of God and of our ownsouls, and our knowledge of right and wrong, are immediate, and areindependent of the senses. We are in direct communication with the"Over-soul, " the infinite Spirit. "The soul in man is the backgroundof our being--an immensity not possessed, that cannot be possessed. ""From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, andmakes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. " Revelationis "an influx of the Divine mind into our mind. It is an ebb of theindividual rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life. " Inmoods of exaltation, and especially in the presence of nature, thiscontact of the individual soul with the absolute is felt. "All meanegotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I seeall; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I ampart and particle of God. " The existence and attributes of God are notdeducible from history or from natural theology, but are thus directlygiven us in consciousness. In his essay on the _Transcendentalist_Emerson says: "His experience inclines him to behold the procession offacts you call the world as flowing perpetually outward from aninvisible, unsounded center in himself; center alike of him and ofthem, and necessitating him to regard all things as having a subjectiveor relative existence--relative to that aforesaid Unknown Center ofhim. There is no bar or wall in the soul where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. We lie open on one side to thedeeps of spiritual nature, to the attributes of God. "

Emerson's point of view, though familiar to students of philosophy, isstrange to the popular understanding, and hence has arisen thecomplaint of his obscurity. Moreover, he apprehended and expressedthese ideas as a poet, in figurative and emotional language, and not asa metaphysician, in a formulated statement. His own position inrelation to systematic philosophers is described in what he says ofPlato, in his series of sketches entitled _Representative Men_, 1850:"He has not a system. The dearest disciples and defenders are atfault. He attempted a theory of the universe, and his theory is notcomplete or self-evident. One man thinks he means this, and anotherthat; he has said one thing in one place, and the reverse of it inanother place. " It happens, therefore, that, to many students of moreformal philosophies, Emerson's meaning seems elusive, and he appears towrite from temporary moods and to contradict himself. Had he attempteda reasoned exposition of the transcendental philosophy, instead ofwriting essays and poems, he might have added one more to the number ofsystem-mongers; but he would not have taken that significant placewhich he occupies in the general literature of the time, nor exertedthat wide influence upon younger writers which has been one of thestimulating forces in American thought. It was because Emerson was apoet that he is our Emerson. And yet it would be impossible todisentangle his peculiar philosophical ideas from the body of hiswritings and to leave the latter to stand upon their merits asliterature merely. He is the poet of certain high abstractions, andhis religion is central to all his work--excepting, perhaps, his_English Traits_, 1856, an acute study of national characteristics; anda few of his essays and verses, which are independent of any particularphilosophical stand-point. 

When Emerson resigned his parish in 1832, he made a short trip toEurope, where he visited Carlyle at Craigenputtock, and Landor atFlorence. On his return he retired to his birthplace, the village ofConcord, Massachusetts, and settled down among his books and hisfields, becoming a sort of "glorified farmer, " but issuing frequentlyfrom his retirement to instruct and delight audiences of thoughtfulpeople at Boston and at other points all through the country. Emersonwas the perfection of a lyceum lecturer. His manner was quiet butforcible, his voice of charming quality, and his enunciation clean-cutand refined. The sentence was his unit in composition. His lecturesseemed to begin anywhere and to end anywhere and to resemble strings ofexquisitely polished sayings rather than continuous discourses. Hisprinted essays, with unimportant exceptions, were first written anddelivered as lectures. In 1836 he published his first book, _Nature_, which remains the most systematic statement of his philosophy. Itopened a fresh spring-head in American thought, and the words of itsintroduction announced that its author had broken with the past. "Whyshould not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Whyshould not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not oftradition, and a religion by revelation to us and not the history oftheirs?"

It took eleven years to sell five hundred copies of this little book. But the year following its publication the remarkable Phi Beta Kappaaddress at Cambridge, on the _American Scholar_, electrified the littlepublic of the university. This is described by Lowell as "an eventwithout any former parallel in our literary annals, a scene to bealways treasured in the memory for its picturesqueness and itsinspiration. What crowded and breathless aisles, what windowsclustering with eager heads, what grim silence of foregone dissent!" ToConcord come many kindred spirits, drawn by Emerson's magneticattraction. Thither came, from Connecticut, Amos Bronson Alcott, borna few years before Emerson, whom he outlived; a quaint and benignantfigure, a visionary and a mystic even among the transcendentaliststhemselves, and one who lived in unworldly simplicity the life of thesoul. Alcott had taught school at Cheshire, Conn. , and afterward atBoston on an original plan--compelling his scholars, for example, toflog _him_, when they did wrong, instead of taking a floggingthemselves. The experiment was successful until his _Conversations onthe Gospels_, in Boston, and his insistence upon admitting coloredchildren to his benches, offended conservative opinion and broke up hisschool. Alcott renounced the eating of animal food in 1835. Hebelieved in the union of thought and manual labor, and supportedhimself for some years by the work of his hands, gardening, cuttingwood, etc. He traveled into the West and elsewhere, holdingconversations on philosophy, education, and religion. He set up alittle community at the village of Harvard, Massachusetts, which wasrather less successful than Brook Farm, and he contributed _OrphicSayings_ to the _Dial_, which were harder for the exoteric tounderstand than even Emerson's _Brahma_ or the _Over-soul_. 

Thither came, also, Sarah Margaret Fuller, the most intellectual womanof her time in America, an eager student of Greek and German literatureand an ardent seeker after the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Shethrew herself into many causes--such as temperance and the highereducation of women. Her brilliant conversation classes in Bostonattracted many "minds" of her own sex. Subsequently, as literaryeditor of the _New York Tribune_, she furnished a wider public withreviews and book notices of great ability. She took part in the BrookFarm experiment, and she edited the _Dial_ for a time, contributing toit the papers afterward expanded into her most considerable book, _Woman in the Nineteenth Century_. In 1846 she went abroad, and atRome took part in the revolutionary movement of Mazzini, having chargeof one of the hospitals during the siege of the city by the French. In1847 she married an impecunious Italian nobleman, the Marquis Ossoli. In 1850 the ship on which she was returning to America, with herhusband and child, was wrecked on Fire Island beach and all three werelost. Margaret Fuller's collected writings are somewhat disappointing, being mainly of temporary interest. She lives less through her booksthan through the memoirs of her friends, Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, T. W. Higginson, and others who knew her as a personal influence. Herstrenuous and rather overbearing individuality made an impression notaltogether agreeable upon many of her contemporaries. Lowellintroduced a caricature of her as "Miranda" into his _Fable forCritics_, and Hawthorne's caustic sketch of her, preserved in thebiography written by his son, has given great offence to her admirers. "Such a determination to _eat_ this huge universe!" was Carlyle'scharacteristic comment on her appetite for knowledge and aspirationsafter perfection. 

To Concord also came Nathaniel Hawthorne, who took up his residencethere first at the "Old Manse, " and afterward at "The Wayside. " Thoughnaturally an idealist, he said that he came too late to Concord to falldecidedly under Emerson's influence. Of that he would have stood inlittle danger even had he come earlier. He appreciated the deep andsubtle quality of Emerson's imagination, but his own shy genius alwaysjealously guarded its independence and resented the too closeapproaches of an alien mind. Among the native disciples of Emerson atConcord the most noteworthy were Henry Thoreau, and his friend andbiographer, William Ellery Channing, Jr. , a nephew of the greatChanning. Channing was a contributor to the _Dial_, and he published avolume of poems which elicited a fiercely contemptous review from EdgarPoe. Though disfigured by affectation and obscurity, many ofChanning's verses were distinguished by true poetic feeling, and thelast line of his little piece, _A Poet's Hope_, "If my bark sink 'tis to another sea, "

has taken a permanent place in the literature of transcendentalism. 

The private organ of the transcendentalists was the _Dial_, a quarterlymagazine, published from 1840 to 1844, and edited by Emerson andMargaret Fuller. Among its contributors, besides those alreadymentioned, were Ripley, Thoreau, Parker, James Freeman Clarke, CharlesA. Dana, John S. Dwight, C. P. Cranch, Charles Emerson, and William H. Channing, another nephew of Dr. Channing. It contained, along with agood deal of rubbish, some of the best poetry and prose that has beenpublished in America. The most lasting part of its contents were thecontributions of Emerson and Thoreau. But even as a whole it was aunique way-mark in the history of our literature. 

From time to time Emerson collected and published his lectures undervarious titles. A first series of _Essays_ came out in 1841, and asecond in 1844; the _Conduct of Life_ in 1860, _Society and Solitude_in 1870, _Letters and Social Aims_ in 1876, and the _Fortune of theRepublic_ in 1878. In 1847 he issued a volume of _Poems_, and 1865_Mayday and Other Poems_. These writings, as a whole, were variationson a single theme, expansions and illustrations of the philosophy setforth in _Nature_, and his early addresses. They were strikinglyoriginal, rich in thought, filled with wisdom, with lofty morality andspiritual religion. Emerson, said Lowell, first "cut the cable thatbound us to English thought and gave us a chance at the dangers andglories of blue water. " Nevertheless, as it used to be the fashion tofind an English analogue for every American writer, so that Cooper wascalled the American Scott, and Mrs. Sigourney was described as theHemans of America, a well-worn critical tradition has coupled Emersonwith Carlyle. That his mind received a nudge from Carlyle's earlyessays and from _Sartor Resartus_ is beyond a doubt. They werelife-long friends and correspondents, and Emerson's _RepresentativeMen_ is, in some sort, a counterpart of Carlyle's _Hero Worship_. Butin temper and style the two writers were widely different. Carlyle'spessimism and dissatisfaction with the general drift of things gainedupon him more and more, while Emerson was a consistent optimist to theend. The last of his writings published during his life-time, the_Fortune of the Republic_, contrasts strangely in its hopefulness withthe desperation of Carlyle's later utterances. Even in presence of thedoubt as to man's personal immortality he takes refuge in a high andstoical faith. "I think all sound minds rest on a certain preliminaryconviction, namely, that if it be best that conscious personal lifeshall continue it will continue, and if not best, then it will not; andwe, if we saw the whole, should of course see that it was better so. "It is this conviction that gives to Emerson's writings their serenityand their tonic quality at the same time that it narrows the range ofhis dealings with life. As the idealist declines to cross-examinethose facts which he regards as merely phenomenal, and looks upon thisoutward face of things as upon a mask not worthy to dismay the fixedsoul, so the optimist turns away his eyes from the evil which hedisposes of as merely negative, as the shadow of the good. Hawthorne'sinterest in the problem of sin finds little place in Emerson'sphilosophy. Passion comes not nigh him, and _Faust_ disturbs him withits disagreeableness. Pessimism is to him "the only skepticism. "

The greatest literature is that which is most broadly human, or, inother words, that which will square best with all philosophies. ButEmerson's genius was interpretative rather than constructive. The poetdwells in the cheerful world of phenomena. He is most the poet whorealizes most intensely the good and the bad of human life. ButIdealism makes experience shadowy and subordinates action tocontemplation. To it the cities of men, with their "frivolouspopulations, "

 "are but sailing foam-bells Along thought's causing stream. "

Shakespeare does not forget that the world will one day vanish "likethe baseless fabric of a vision, " and that we ourselves are "such stuffas dreams are made on;" but this is not the mood in which he dwells. Again: while it is for the philosopher to reduce variety to unity, itis the poet's task to detect the manifold under uniformity. In thegreat creative poets, in Shakespeare and Dante and Goethe, how infinitethe swarm of persons, the multitude of forms! But with Emerson thetype is important, the common element. "In youth we are mad forpersons. But the larger experience of man discovers the identicalnature appearing through them all. " "The same--the same!" he exclaimsin his essay on _Plato_. "Friend and foe are of one stuff; theplowman, the plow, and the furrow are of one stuff. " And this is thethought in _Brahma_:

 "They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly I am the wings: I am the doubter find the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. "

It is not easy to fancy a writer who holds this altitude toward"persons" descending to the composition of a novel or a play. Emersonshowed, indeed, a fine power of character-analysis in his _EnglishTraits_ and _Representative Men_ and in his memoirs of Thoreau andMargaret Fuller. There is even a sort of dramatic humor in hisportrait of Socrates. But upon the whole he stands midway betweenconstructive artists, whose instinct it is to tell a story or sing asong, and philosophers, like Schelling, who give poetic expression to asystem of thought. He belongs to the class of minds of which SirThomas Browne is the best English example. He set a high value uponBrowne, to whose style his own, though far more sententious, bears aresemblance. Browne's saying, for example, "All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God, " sounds like Emerson, whose workmanship, for the rest, in his prose essays was exceedingly fine and close. Hewas not afraid to be homely and racy in expressing thought of thehighest spirituality. "Hitch your wagon to a star" is a good instanceof his favorite manner. 

Emerson's verse often seems careless in technique. Most of his piecesare scrappy and have the air of runic rimes, or little oracular"voicings"--as they say at Concord--in rhythmic shape, of singlethoughts on "Worship, " "Character, " "Heroism, " "Art, " "Politics, ""Culture, " etc. The content is the important thing, and the form istoo frequently awkward or bald. Sometimes, indeed, in theclear-obscure of Emerson's poetry the deep wisdom of the thought findsits most natural expression in the imaginative simplicity of thelanguage. But though this artlessness in him became too frequently inhis imitators, like Thoreau and Ellery Channing, an obtrudedsimplicity, among his own poems are many that leave nothing to bedesired in point of wording and of verse. His _Hymn Sung at theCompletion of the Concord Monument_, in 1836, is the perfect model ofan occasional poem. Its lines were on every one's lips at the time ofthe centennial celebrations in 1876, and "the shot heard round theworld" has hardly echoed farther than the song which chronicled it. Equally current is the stanza from _Voluntaries_:

 "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must, ' The youth replies, 'I can. '"

So, too, the famous lines from the _Problem_:

 "The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity. Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew; The conscious stone to beauty grew. "

The most noteworthy of Emerson's pupils was Henry David Thoreau, "thepoet-naturalist. " After his graduation from Harvard College, in 1837, Thoreau engaged in school-teaching and in the manufacture oflead-pencils, but soon gave up all regular business and devoted himselfto walking, reading, and the study of nature. He was at one timeprivate tutor in a family on Staten Island, and he supported himselffor a season by doing odd jobs in land-surveying for the farmers aboutConcord. In 1845 he built, with his own hands, a small cabin on thebanks of Walden Pond, near Concord, and lived there in seclusion fortwo years. His expenses during these years were nine cents a day, andhe gave an account of his experiment in his most characteristic book, _Walden_, published in 1854. His _Week on the Concord and MerrimacRivers_ appeared in 1849. From time to time he went farther afield, and his journeys were reported in _Cape Cod_, the _Maine Woods_, _Excursions_, and _A Yankee in Canada_, all of which, as well as avolume of _Letters_ and _Early Spring in Massachusetts_, have beengiven to the public since his death, which happened in 1862. No onehas lived so close to nature, and written of it so intimately, asThoreau. His life was a lesson in economy and a sermon on Emerson'stext, "Lessen your denominator. " He wished to reduce existence to thesimplest terms--to

 "live all alone Close to the bone, And where life is sweet Constantly eat. "

He had a passion for the wild, and seems like an Anglo-Saxon reversionto the type of the Red Indian. The most distinctive note in Thoreau ishis inhumanity. Emerson spoke of him as a "perfect piece of stoicism. ""Man, " said Thoreau, "is only the point on which I stand. " He stroveto realize the objective life of nature--nature in its aloofness fromman; to identify himself, with the moose and the mountain. Helistened, with his ear close to the ground, for the voice of the earth. "What are the trees saying?" he exclaimed. Following upon the trail ofthe lumberman, he asked the primeval wilderness for its secret, and

 "saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight linnaea hang its twin-born heads. "

He tried to interpret the thought of Ktaadn and to fathom the meaningof the billows on the back of Cape Cod, in their indifference to theshipwrecked bodies that they rolled ashore. "After sitting in mychamber many days, reading the poets, I have been out early on a foggymorning and heard the cry of an owl in a neighboring wood as from anature behind the common, unexplored by science or by literature. Noneof the feathered race has yet realized my youthful conceptions of thewoodland depths. I had seen the red election-birds brought from theirrecesses on my comrade's string, and fancied that their plumage wouldassume stranger and more dazzling colors, like the tints of evening, inproportion as I advanced farther into the darkness and solitude of theforest. Still less have I seen such strong and wild tints on anypoet's string. "

It was on the mystical side that Thoreau apprehended transcendentalism. Mysticism has been defined as the soul's recognition of its identitywith nature. This thought lies plainly in Schelling's philosophy, andhe illustrated it by his famous figure of the magnet. Mind and natureare one; they are the positive and negative poles of the magnet. Inman, the Absolute--that is, God--becomes conscious of himself; makes ofhimself, as nature, an object to himself as mind. "The souls of men, "said Schelling, "are but the innumerable individual eyes with which ourinfinite World-Spirit beholds himself. " This thought is also clearlypresent in Emerson's view of nature, and has caused him to be accusedof pantheism. But if by pantheism is meant the doctrine that theunderlying principle of the universe is matter or force, none of thetranscendentalists was a pantheist. In their view nature was divine. Their poetry is always haunted by the sense of a spiritual realitywhich abides beyond the phenomena. Thus in Emerson's _Two Rivers_:

 "Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, [1] Repeats the music of the rain, But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee as thou through Concord plain. 

 "Thou in thy narrow banks art pent; The stream I love unbounded goes; Through flood and sea and firmament, Through light, through life, it forward flows. 

 "I see the inundation sweet, I hear the spending of the stream, Through years, through men, through nature fleet, Through passion, thought, through power and dream. "

This mood occurs frequently in Thoreau. The hard world of matterbecomes suddenly all fluent and spiritual, and he sees himself init--sees God. "This earth, " he cries, "which is spread out like a maparound me, is but the lining of my inmost soul exposed. " "In _me_ isthe sucker that I see;" and, of Walden Pond, "I am its stony shore, And the breeze that passes o'er. "

"Suddenly old Time winked at me--ah, you know me, you rogue--and newshad come that IT was well. That ancient universe is in such capitalhealth, I think, undoubtedly, it will never die. . . . I see, smell, taste, hear, feel that ever-lasting something to which we are allied, at once our maker, our abode, our destiny, our very selves. " It wassomething ulterior that Thoreau sought in nature. "The other world, "he wrote, "is all my art: my pencils will draw no other; my jack-knifewill cut nothing else. " Thoreau did not scorn, however, like Emerson, to "examine too microscopically the universal tablet. " He was a closeobserver and accurate reporter of the ways of birds and plants and theminuter aspects of nature. He has had many followers, who haveproduced much pleasant literature on out-door life. But in none ofthem is there that unique combination of the poet, the naturalist, andthe mystic which gives his page its wild original flavor. He had thewoodcraft of a hunter and the eye of a botanist, but his imaginationdid not stop short with the fact. The sound of a tree falling in theMaine woods was to him "as though a door had shut somewhere in the dampand shaggy wilderness. " He saw small things in cosmic relations. Histrip down the tame Concord has for the reader the excitement of avoyage of exploration into far and unknown regions. The river justabove Sherman's Bridge, in time of flood "when the wind blows freshlyon a raw March day, heaving up the surface into dark and soberbillows, " was like Lake Huron, "and you may run aground on CranberryIsland, " and "get as good a freezing there as anywhere on theNorth-west coast. " He said that most of the phenomena described inKane's voyages could be observed in Concord. 

The literature of transcendentalism was like the light of the stars ina winter night, keen and cold and high. It had the pale cast ofthought, and was almost too spiritual and remote to "hit the sense ofmortal sight. " But it was at least indigenous. If not an Americanliterature--not national and not inclusive of all sides of Americanlife--it was, at all events, a genuine New England literature and trueto the spirit of its section. The tough Puritan stock had at last putforth a blossom which compared with the warm, robust growths of Englishsoil even as the delicate wind flower of the northern spring compareswith the cowslips and daisies of old England. 

In 1842 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), the greatest American romancer, came to Concord. He had recently left Brook Farm, had just beenmarried, and with his bride he settled down in the "Old Manse" forthree paradisaical years. A picture of this protracted honeymoon andthis sequestered life, as tranquil as the slow stream on whose banks itwas passed, is given in the introductory chapter to his _Mosses from anOld Manse_, 1846, and in the more personal and confidential records ofhis _American Note Books_, posthumously published. Hawthorne wasthirty-eight when he took his place among the Concord literati. Hischildhood and youth had been spent partly at his birthplace, the oldand already somewhat decayed sea-port town of Salem, and partly at hisgrandfather's farm on Sebago Lake, in Maine, then on the edge of theprimitive forest. Maine did not become a State, indeed, until 1820, the year before Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College, whence he wasgraduated in 1825, in the same class with Henry W. Longfellow and oneyear behind Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States. After leaving college Hawthorne buried himself for years in theseclusion of his home at Salem. His mother, who was early widowed, hadwithdrawn entirely from the world. For months at a time Hawthorne kepthis room, seeing no other society than that of his mother and sisters, reading all sorts of books and writing wild tales, most of which hedestroyed as soon as he had written them. At twilight he would emergefrom the house for a solitary ramble through the streets of the town oralong the sea-side. Old Salem had much that was picturesque in itsassociations. It had been the scene of the witch trials in theseventeenth century, and it abounded in ancient mansions, the homes ofretired whalers and India merchants. Hawthorne's father had been aship captain, and many of his ancestors had followed the sea. One ofhis forefathers, moreover, had been a certain Judge Hawthorne, who in1691 had sentenced several of the witches to death. The thought ofthis affected Hawthorne's imagination with a pleasing horror, and heutilized it afterward in his _House of the Seven Gables_. Many of theold Salem houses, too, had their family histories, with now and thenthe hint of some obscure crime or dark misfortune which hauntedposterity with its curse till all the stock died out or fell intopoverty and evil ways, as in the Pyncheon family of Hawthorne'sromance. In the preface to the _Marble Faun_ Hawthorne wrote: "Noauthor without a trial can conceive of the difficulty of writing aromance about a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, nomystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor any thing but acommonplace prosperity in broad and simple daylight. " And yet it maybe doubted whether any environment could have been found more fitted tohis peculiar genius than this of his native town, or any preparationbetter calculated to ripen the faculty that was in him than these long, lonely years of waiting and brooding thought. From time to time hecontributed a story or a sketch to some periodical, such as S. G. Goodrich's annual, the _Token_, or the _Knickerbocker Magazine_. Someof these attracted the attention of the judicious; but they wereanonymous and signed by various _noms de plume_, and their author wasat this time--to use his own words--"the obscurest man of letters inAmerica. " In 1828 he had issued anonymously and at his own expense ashort romance, entitled _Fanshawe_. It had little success, and copiesof the first edition are now exceedingly rare. In 1837 he published acollection of his magazine pieces under the title, _Twice-Told Tales_. The book was generously praised in the _North American Review_ by hisformer classmate, Longfellow; and Edgar Poe showed his keen criticalperception by predicting that the writer would easily put himself atthe head of imaginative literature in America if he would discardallegory, drop short stories, and compose a genuine romance. Poecompared Hawthorne's work with that of the German romancer, Tieck, andit is interesting to find confirmation of this dictum in passages ofthe _American Note Books_, in which Hawthorne speaks of laboring overTieck with a German dictionary. The _Twice-Told Tales_ are the work ofa recluse, who makes guesses at life from a knowledge of his own heart, acquired by a habit of introspection, but who has had little contactwith men. Many of them were shadowy, and others were morbid andunwholesome. But their gloom was of an interior kind, never thephysically horrible of Poe. It arose from weird psychologicalsituations like that of _Ethan Brand_ in his search for theunpardonable sin. Hawthorne was true to the inherited instinct ofPuritanism; he took the conscience for his theme, and in these earlytales he was already absorbed in the problem of evil, the subtle waysin which sin works out its retribution, and the species of fate ornecessity that the wrong-doer makes for himself in the inevitablesequences of his crime. Hawthorne was strongly drawn toward symbolsand types, and never quite followed Poe's advice to abandon allegory. The _Scarlet Letter_ and his other romances are not, indeed, strictlyallegories, since the characters are men and women and not merepersonifications of abstract qualities. Still, they all have a certainallegorical tinge. In the _Marble Faun_, for example, Hilda, Kenyon, Miriam, and Donatello have been ingeniously explained aspersonifications respectively of the conscience, the reason, theimagination, and the senses. Without going so far as this, it ispossible to see in these and in Hawthorne's other creations somethingtypical and representative. He uses his characters like algebraicsymbols to work out certain problems with; they are rather more and yetrather less than flesh and blood individuals. The stories in_Twice-Told Tales_ and in the second collection, _Mosses from an OldManse_, 1846, are more openly allegorical than his later work. Thusthe _Minister's Black Veil_ is a sort of anticipation of ArthurDimmesdale in the _Scarlet Letter_. From 1846 to 1849 Hawthorne heldthe position of surveyor of the Custom House of Salem. In the prefaceto the _Scarlet Letter_ he sketched some of the government officialswith whom this office had brought him into contact in a way that gavesome offense to the friends of the victims and a great deal ofamusement to the public. Hawthorne's humor was quiet and fine, likeIrving's, but less genial and with a more satiric edge to it. The booklast named was written at Salem and published in 1850, just before itsauthor's removal to Lenox, now a sort of inland Newport, but then anunfashionable resort among the Berkshire hills. Whatever obscurity mayhave hung over Hawthorne hitherto was effectually dissolved by thispowerful tale, which was as vivid in coloring as the implication of itstitle. Hawthorne chose for his background the somber life of the earlysettlers of New England. Ho had always been drawn toward this part ofAmerican history, and in _Twice-Told Tales_ had given someillustrations of it in _Endicott's Red Cross_ and _Legends of theProvince House_. Against this dark foil moved in strong relief thefigures of Hester Prynne, the woman taken in adultery; her paramour, the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale; her husband, old Roger Chillingworth; andher illegitimate child. In tragic power, in its grasp of theelementary passions of human nature and its deep and subtle insightinto the inmost secrets of the heart, this is Hawthorne's greatestbook. He never crowded his canvas with figures. In the _BlithedaleRomance_ and the _Marble Faun_ there is the same _parti carré_ or groupof four characters. In the _House of the Seven Gables_ there are five. The last mentioned of these, published in 1852, was of a more subduedintensity than the _Scarlet Letter_, but equally original, and, uponthe whole, perhaps equally good. The _Blithedale Romance_, publishedin the same year, though not strikingly inferior to the others, adheredmore to conventional patterns in its plot and in the sensational natureof its ending. The suicide of the heroine by drowning, and theterrible scene of the recovery of her body, were suggested to theauthor by an experience of his own on Concord River, the account ofwhich, in his own words, may be read in Julian Hawthorne's _NathanielHawthorne and His Wife_. In 1852 Hawthorne returned to Concord andbought the "Wayside" property, which he retained until his death. Butin the following year his old college friend Pierce, now becomePresident, appointed him consul to Liverpool, and he went abroad forseven years. The most valuable fruit of his foreign residence was theromance of the _Marble Faun_, 1860, the longest of his fictions and therichest in descriptive beauty. The theme of this was the developmentof the soul through the experience of sin. There is a haunting mysterythrown about the story, like a soft veil of mist, veiling the beginningand the end. There is even a delicate teasing suggestion of thepreternatural in Donatello, the Faun, a creation as original asShakespeare's Caliban or Fouque's Undine, and yet quite on this sidethe border-line of the human. _Our Old Home_, a book of charmingpapers on England, was published in 1863. Manifold experience of lifeand contact with men, affording scope for his always keen observation, had added range, fullness, warmth to the imaginative subtlety which hadmanifested itself even in his earliest tales. Two admirable books forchildren, the _Wonder Book_ and _Tanglewood Tales_, in which theclassical mythologies were retold, should also be mentioned in the listof Hawthorne's writings, as well as the _American_, _English_, and_Italian Note Books_, the first of which contains the seed-thoughts ofsome of his finished works, together with hundreds of hints for plots, episodes, descriptions, etc. , which he never found time to work out. Hawthorne's style, in his first sketches and stories a little stiltedand "bookish, " gradually acquired an exquisite perfection, and is aswell worth study as that of any prose classic in the English tongue. 

Hawthorne was no transcendentalist. He dwelt much in a world of ideas, and he sometimes doubted whether the tree on the bank or its image inthe stream were the more real. But this had little in common with thephilosophical idealism of his neighbors. He reverenced Emerson, and heheld kindly intercourse--albeit a silent man and easily bored--withThoreau and Ellery Channing, and even with Margaret Fuller. But hissharp eyes saw whatever was whimsical or weak in the apostles of thenew faith. He had little enthusiasm for causes or reforms, and amongso many Abolitionists he remained a Democrat, and even wrote a campaignlife of his friend Pierce. 

The village of Concord has perhaps done more for American literaturethan the city of New York. Certainly there are few places whereassociations, both patriotic and poetic, cluster so thickly. At oneside of the grounds of the Old Manse--which has the river at itsback--runs down a shaded lane to the Concord monument and the figure ofthe Minute Man and the successor of "the rude bridge that arched theflood. " Scarce two miles away, among the woods, is littleWalden--"God's drop. " The men who made Concord famous are asleep inSleepy Hollow, yet still their memory prevails to draw seekers aftertruth to the Concord Summer School of Philosophy, which met annually, afew years since, to reason high of "God, Freedom, and Immortality, "next door to the "Wayside, " and under the hill on whose ridge Hawthornewore a path as he paced up and down beneath the hemlocks. 

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson. _Nature_. _The American Scholar_. _LiteraryEthics_. _The Transcendentalism_. _The Over-soul_. _Address beforethe Cambridge Divinity School_. _English Traits_. _RepresentativeMen_. _Poems_. 

2. Henry David Thoreau. _Excursions_. _Walden_. _A Week on theConcord and Merrimac Rivers_. _Cape Cod_. _The Maine Woods_. 

3. Nathaniel Hawthorne. _Mosses from an Old Manse_. _The ScarletLetter_. _The House of the Seven Gables_. _The Blithedale Romance_. _The Marble Faun_. _Our Old Home_. 

4. _Transcendentalism in New England_. By O. B. Frothingham. NewYork: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1875. 

[1]The Indian name of Concord River. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS. 

1837-1861. 

With few exceptions, the men who have made American literature what itis have been college graduates. And yet our colleges have not commonlybeen, in themselves, literary centers. Most of them have been smalland poor, and situated in little towns or provincial cities. Theiralumni scatter far and wide immediately after graduation, and eventhose of them who may feel drawn to a life of scholarship or lettersfind little to attract them at the home of their _alma mater_, and seekby preference the larger cities, where periodicals and publishinghouses offer some hope of support in a literary career. Even in theolder and better equipped universities the faculty is usually a corpsof working scholars, each man intent upon his specialty and ratherinclined to undervalue merely "literary" performance. In many casesthe fastidious and hypercritical turn of mind which besets the scholar, the timid conservatism which naturally characterizes an ancient seat oflearning, and the spirit of theological conformity which suppressesfree discussion, have exerted their benumbing influence upon theoriginality and creative impulse of their inmates. Hence it happensthat, while the contributions of American college teachers to the exactsciences, to theology and philology, metaphysics, political philosophy, and the severer branches of learning have been honorable and important, they have as a class made little mark upon the general literature ofthe country. The professors of literature in our colleges are usuallypersons who have made no additions to literature, and the professors ofrhetoric seem ordinarily to have been selected to teach students how towrite for the reason that they themselves have never written any thingthat any one has ever read. 

To these remarks the Harvard College of some fifty years ago offerssome striking exceptions. It was not the large and fashionableuniversity that it has lately grown to be, with its multiplied electivecourses, its numerous faculty, and its somewhat motley collection ofundergraduates; but a small school of the classics and mathematics, with something of ethics, natural science, and the modern languagesadded to its old-fashioned, scholastic curriculum, and with a veryhomogeneous _clientèle_, drawn mainly from the Unitarian families ofeastern Massachusetts. Nevertheless a finer intellectual life, in manyrespects, was lived at old Cambridge within the years covered by thischapter than nowadays at the same place, or at any date in any otherAmerican university town. The neighborhood of Boston, where thecommercial life has never so entirely overlain the intellectual as inNew York and Philadelphia, has been a standing advantage to HarvardCollege. The recent upheaval in religious thought had securedtoleration and made possible that free and even audacious interchangeof ideas without which a literary atmosphere is impossible. Fromthese, or from whatever causes, it happened that the old Harvardscholarship had an elegant and tasteful side to it, so that the dryerudition of the schools blossomed into a generous culture, and therewere men in the professors' chairs who were no less efficient asteachers because they were also poets, orators, wits, and men of theworld. In the seventeen years from 1821 to 1839 there were graduatedfrom Harvard College Emerson, Holmes, Sumner, Phillips, Motley, Thoreau, Lowell, and Edward Everett Hale; some of whom took up theirresidence at Cambridge, others at Boston, and others at Concord, whichwas quite as much a spiritual suburb of Boston as Cambridge was. In1836, when Longfellow became professor of modern languages at Harvard, Sumner was lecturing in the Law School. The following year--in whichThoreau took his bachelor's degree--witnessed the delivery of Emerson'sPhi Beta Kappa lecture on the _American Scholar_ in the college chapel, and Wendell Phillips's speech on the _Murder of Lovejoy_ in FaneuilHall. Lowell, whose description of the impression produced by theformer of these famous addresses has been quoted in a previous chapter, was an under-graduate at the time. He took his degree in 1838, and in1855 succeeded Longfellow in the chair of modern languages. Holmes hadbeen chosen in 1847 professor of anatomy and physiology in the MedicalSchool--a position which he held until 1882. The historians, Prescottand Bancroft, had been graduated in 1814 and 1817 respectively. Theformer's first important publication, _Ferdinand and Isabella_, appeared in 1837. Bancroft had been a tutor in the college in 1822-23, and the initial volume of his _History of the United States_ was issuedin 1835. Another of the Massachusetts school of historical writers, Francis Parkman, took his first degree at Harvard in 1844. Cambridgewas still hardly more than a village, a rural outskirt of Boston, suchas Lowell described it in his article, _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_, originally contributed to _Putnam's Monthly_ in 1853, and afterwardreprinted in his _Fireside Travels_, 1864. The situation of auniversity scholar in old Cambridge was thus an almost ideal one. Within easy reach of a great city, with its literary and social clubs, its theaters, lecture courses, public meetings, dinner-parties, etc. , he yet lived withdrawn in an academic retirement among elm-shadedavenues and leafy gardens, the dome of the Boston Statehouse loomingdistantly across the meadows where the Charles laid its "steel bluesickle" upon the variegated, plush-like ground of the wide marsh. There was thus, at all times during the quarter of a century embracedbetween 1837 and 1861, a group of brilliant men resident in or aboutCambridge and Boston, meeting frequently and intimately, and exertingupon one another a most stimulating influence. Some of the closercircles--all concentric to the university--of which this group wasloosely composed were laughed at by outsiders as "Mutual AdmirationSocieties. " Such was, for instance, the "Five of Clubs, " whose memberswere Longfellow, Sumner, C. C. Felton, professor of Greek at Harvard, and afterward president of the college; G. S. Hillard, a gracefullecturer, essayist, and poet, of a somewhat amateurish kind; and HenryR. Cleveland, of Jamaica Plain, a lover of books and a writer of them. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), the most widely read and loved ofAmerican poets--or, indeed, of all contemporary poets in England andAmerica--though identified with Cambridge for nearly fifty years, was anative of Portland, Maine, and a graduate of Bowdoin College, in thesame class with Hawthorne. Since leaving college, in 1825, he hadstudied and traveled for some years in Europe, and had held theprofessorship of modern languages at Bowdoin. He had published severaltext-books, a number of articles on the Romance languages andliteratures in the _North American Review_, a thin volume of metricaltranslations from the Spanish, a few original poems in variousperiodicals, and the pleasant sketches of European travel entitled_Outre-Mer_. But Longfellow's fame began with the appearance in 1839of his _Voices of the Night_. Excepting an earlier collection byBryant this was the first volume of real poetry published in NewEngland, and it had more warmth and sweetness, a greater richness andvariety, than Bryant's work ever possessed. Longfellow's genius wasalmost feminine in its flexibility and its sympathetic quality. Itreadily took the color of its surroundings and opened itself eagerly toimpressions of the beautiful from every quarter, but especially frombooks. This first volume contained a few things written during hisstudent days at Bowdoin, one of which, a blank-verse piece on _Autumn_, clearly shows the influence of Bryant's _Thanatopsis_. Most of thesejuvenilia had nature for their theme, but they were not so sternly trueto the New England landscape as Thoreau or Bryant. The skylark and theivy appear among their scenic properties, and in the best of them, _Woods in Winter_, it is the English "hawthorn" and not any Americantree, through which the gale is made to blow, just as later Longfellowuses "rooks" instead of crows. The young poet's fancy wasinstinctively putting out feelers toward the storied lands of the OldWorld, and in his _Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem_ hetransformed the rude church of the Moravian sisters to a cathedral with"glimmering tapers, " swinging censers, chancel, altar, cowls, and "dimmysterious aisle. " After his visit to Europe Longfellow returneddeeply imbued with the spirit of romance. It was his mission to refineour national taste by opening to American readers, in their ownvernacular, new springs of beauty in the literatures of foreigntongues. The fact that this mission was interpretive, rather thancreative, hardly detracts from Longfellow's true originality. Itmerely indicates that his inspiration came to him in the first instancefrom other sources than the common life about him. He naturally beganas a translator, and this first volume contained, among other things, exquisite renderings from the German of Uhland, Salis, and Müller, fromthe Danish, French, Spanish, and Anglo-Saxon, and a few passages fromDante. Longfellow remained all his life a translator, and in subtlerways than by direct translation he infused the fine essence of Europeanpoetry into his own. He loved

 "Tales that have the rime of age And chronicles of eld. "

The golden light of romance is shed upon his page, and it is his habitto borrow mediaeval and Catholic imagery from his favorite Middle Ages, even when writing of American subjects. To him the clouds are hoodedfriars, that "tell their beads in drops of rain;" the midnight windsblowing through woods and mountain passes are chanting solemn massesfor the repose of the dying year, and the strain ends with the prayer--

 "Kyrie, eleyson, Christe, eleyson. "

In his journal he wrote characteristically: "The black shadows lie uponthe grass like engravings in a book. Autumn has written his rubric onthe illuminated leaves, the wind turns them over and chants like afriar. " This in Cambridge, of a moonshiny night, on the first day ofthe American October! But several of the pieces in _Voices of theNight_ sprang more immediately from the poet's own inner experience. The _Hymn to the Night_, the _Psalm of Life_, _The Reaper and theFlowers_, _Footsteps of Angels_, _The Light of Stars_, and _TheBeleaguered City_ spoke of love, bereavement, comfort, patience, andfaith. In these lovely songs, and in many others of the same kindwhich he afterward wrote, Longfellow touched the hearts of all hiscountrymen. America is a country of homes, and Longfellow, as the poetof sentiment and of the domestic affections, became and remains farmore general in his appeal than such a "cosmic" singer as Whitman, whois still practically unknown to the "fierce democracy" to which he hasaddressed himself. It would be hard to overestimate the influence forgood exerted by the tender feeling and the pure and sweet moralitywhich the hundreds of thousands of copies of Longfellow's writings, that have been circulated among readers of all classes in America andEngland, have brought with them. 

Three later collections, _Ballads and Other Poems_, 1842, _The Belfryof Bruges_, 1846; and _The Seaside and the Fireside_, 1850, comprisemost of what is noteworthy in Longfellow's minor poetry. The first ofthese embraced, together with some renderings from the German and theScandinavian languages, specimens of stronger original work than theauthor had yet put forth; namely, the two powerful ballads of _TheSkeleton in Armor_ and _The Wreck of the Hesperus_. The former ofthese, written in the swift leaping meter of Drayton's _Ode to theCambro Britons on their Harp_, was suggested by the digging up of amail-clad skeleton at Fall River--a circumstance which the poet linkedwith the traditions about the Round Tower at Newport, thus giving tothe whole the spirit of a Norse viking song of war and of the sea. _The Wreck of the Hesperus_ was occasioned by the news of shipwrecks onthe coast near Gloucester and by the name of a reef--"Norman'sWoe"--where many of them took place. It was written one night betweentwelve and three, and cost the poet, he said, "hardly an effort. "Indeed, it is the spontaneous ease and grace, the unfailing taste ofLongfellow's lines, which are their best technical quality. There isnothing obscure or esoteric about his poetry. If there is littlepassion or intellectual depth, there is always genuine poetic feeling, often a very high order of imagination, and almost invariably thechoice of the right word. In this volume were also included _TheVillage Blacksmith_ and _Excelsior_. The latter, and the _Psalm ofLife_, have had a "damnable iteration" which causes them to figure asLongfellow's most popular pieces. They are by no means, however, amonghis best. They are vigorously expressed common-places of thathortatory kind which passes for poetry, but is, in reality, a vaguespecies of preaching. 

In _The Belfry of Bruges_ and _The Seaside and the Fireside_ thetranslations were still kept up, and among the original pieces were_The Occupation of Orion_--the most imaginative of all Longfellow'spoems; _Seaweed_, which has very noble stanzas, the favorite _Old Clockon the Stairs_, _The Building of the Ship_, with its magnificentclosing apostrophe to the Union, and _The Fire of Driftwood_, thesubtlest in feeling of any thing that the poet ever wrote. With thesewere verses of a more familiar quality, such as _The Bridge_, _Resignation_, and _The Day Is Done_, and many others, all reflectingmoods of gentle and pensive sentiment, and drawing from analogies innature or in legend lessons which, if somewhat obvious, were expressedwith perfect art. Like Keats, he apprehended every thing on itsbeautiful side. Longfellow was all poet. Like Ophelia in Hamlet, "Thought and affection, passion, hell itself, _He_ turns to favor and to prettiness. "

He cared very little about the intellectual movement of the age. Thetranscendental ideas of Emerson passed over his head and left himundisturbed. For politics he had that gentlemanly distaste which thecultivated class in America had already begun to entertain. In 1842 heprinted a small volume of _Poems on Slavery_, which drew commendationfrom his friend Sumner, but had nothing of the fervor of Whittier's orLowell's utterances on the same subject. It is interesting to comparehis journals with Hawthorne's _American Note Books_, and to observe inwhat very different ways the two writers made prey of their dailyexperiences for literary material. A favorite haunt of Longfellow'swas the bridge between Boston and Cambridgeport, the same which he putinto verse in his poem, _The Bridge_. "I always stop on the bridge, "he writes in his journal; "tide waters are beautiful. From the oceanup into the land they go, like messengers, to ask why the tribute hasnot been paid. The brooks and rivers answer that there has been littleharvest of snow and rain this year. Floating sea-wood and kelp iscarried up into the meadows, as returning sailors bring oranges inbandanna handkerchiefs to friends in the country. " And again: "Weleaned for a while on the wooden rail and enjoyed the silveryreflection on the sea, making sundry comparisons. Among other thoughtswe had this cheering one, that the whole sea was flashing with thisheavenly light, though we saw it only in a single track; the dark wavesare the dark providences of God; luminous, though not to us; and evento ourselves in another position. " "Walk on the bridge, both ends ofwhich are lost in the fog, like human life midway between twoeternities; beginning and ending in mist. " In Hawthorne an allegoricmoaning is usually something deeper and subtler than this, and seldomso openly expressed. Many of Longfellow's poems--the _BeleagueredCity_, for example--may be definitely divided into two parts; in thefirst, a story is told or a natural phenomenon described; in thesecond, the spiritual application of the parable is formally set forth. This method became with him almost a trick of style, and his readerslearn to look for the _hoec fabula docet_ at the end as a matter ofcourse. As for the prevailing optimism in Longfellow's view oflife--of which the above passage is an instance--it seems to be in himan affair of temperament, and not, as in Emerson, the result ofphilosophic insight. Perhaps, however, in the last analysis optimismand pessimism are subjective--the expression of temperament orindividual experience, since the facts of life are the same, whetherseen through Schopenhauer's eyes or through Emerson's. If there is anyparticular in which Longfellow's inspiration came to him at first handand not through books, it is in respect to the aspects of the sea. Onthis theme no American poet has written more beautifully and with akeener sympathy than the author of _The Wreck of the Hesperus_ and of_Seaweed_. 

In 1847 was published the long poem of _Evangeline_. The story of theAcadian peasant girl, who was separated from her lover in thedispersion of her people by the English troops, and after wearywanderings and a life-long search, found him at last, an old man dyingin a Philadelphia hospital, was told to Longfellow by the Rev. H. L. Conolly, who had previously suggested it to Hawthorne as a subject fora story. Longfellow, characteristically enough, "got up" the localcolor for his poem from Haliburton's account of the dispersion of theGrand-Pré Acadians, from Darby's _Geographical Description ofLouisiana_ and Watson's _Annals of Philadelphia_. He never needed togo much outside of his library for literary impulse and material. Whatever may be held as to Longfellow's inventive powers as a creatorof characters or an interpreter of American life, his originality as anartist is manifested by his successful domestication in _Evangeline_ ofthe dactylic hexameter, which no English poet had yet used with effect. The English poet, Arthur Hugh Clough, who lived for a time inCambridge, followed Longfellow's example in the use of hexameter in his_Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich_, so that we have now arrived at thetime--a proud moment for American letters--when the works of ourwriters began to react upon the literature of Europe. But the beautyof the descriptions in _Evangeline_ and the pathos--somewhat too drawnout--of the story made it dear to a multitude of readers who carednothing about the technical disputes of Poe and other critics as towhether or not Longfellow's lines were sufficiently "spondaic" torepresent truthfully the quantitative hexameters of Homer and Vergil. 

In 1855 appeared _Hiawatha_, Longfellow's most aboriginal and"American" book. The tripping trochaic measure he borrowed from theFinnish epic _Kalevala_. The vague, child-like mythology of the Indiantribes, with its anthropomorphic sense of the brotherhood between men, animals, and the forms of inanimate nature, he took from Schoolcraft's_Algic Researches_, 1839. He fixed forever, in a skillfully chosenpoetic form, the more inward and imaginative part of Indian character, as Cooper had given permanence to its external and active side. OfLongfellow's dramatic experiments, the _Golden Legend_, 1851, alonedeserves mention here. This was in his chosen realm, a tale taken fromthe ecclesiastical annals of the Middle Ages, precious with martyrs'blood and bathed in the rich twilight of the cloister. It containssome of his best work, but its merit is rather poetic than dramatic, although Ruskin praised it for the closeness with which it entered intothe temper of the monk. 

Longfellow has pleased the people more than the critics. He gavefreely what he had, and the gift was beautiful. Those who have lookedin his poetry for something else than poetry, or for poetry of someother kind, have not been slow to assert that he was a lady's poet--onewho satisfied callow youths and school-girls by uttering commonplacesin graceful and musical shape, but who offered no strong meat for men. Miss Fuller called his poetry thin, and the poet himself--or, rather, aportrait of the poet which frontispieced an illustrated edition of hisworks--a "dandy Pindar. " This is not true of his poetry, or of thebest of it. But he had a singing and not a talking voice, and in hisprose one becomes sensible of a certain weakness. _Hyperion_, forexample, published in 1839, a loitering fiction, interspersed withdescriptions of European travel, is, upon the whole, a weak book, overflowery in diction and sentimental in tone. 

The crown of Longfellow's achievements as a translator was his greatversion of Dante's _Divina Commedia_, published between 1867 and 1870. It is a severely literal, almost a line for line, rendering. The meteris preserved, but the rhyme sacrificed. If not the best English poemconstructed from Dante, it is at all events the most faithful andscholarly paraphrase. The sonnets which accompanied it are amongLongfellow's best work. He seems to have been raised by dailycommunion with the great Tuscan into a habit of deeper and more subtlethought than is elsewhere common in his poetry. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809- ) is a native of Cambridge and a graduateof Harvard in the class of '29; a class whose anniversary reunions hehas celebrated in something like forty distinct poems and songs. Forsheer cleverness and versatility Dr. Holmes is, perhaps, unrivaledamong American men of letters. He has been poet, wit, humorist, novelist, essayist, and a college lecturer and writer on medicaltopics. In all of these departments he has produced work which rankshigh, if not with the highest. His father, Dr. Abiel Holmes, was agraduate of Yale and an orthodox minister of liberal temper, but theson early threw in his lot with the Unitarians; and, as was natural toa man of satiric turn and with a very human enjoyment of a fight, whoseyouth was cast in an age of theological controversy, he has always hadhis fling at Calvinism, and has prolonged the slogans of old battlesinto a later generation; sometimes, perhaps, insisting upon them ratherwearisomely and beyond the limits of good taste. He had, even as anundergraduate, a reputation for cleverness at writing comic verses, andmany of his good things in this kind, such as the _Dorchester Giant_and the _Height of the Ridiculous_, were contributed to the_Collegian_, a students' paper. But he first drew the attention of awider public by his spirited ballad of _Old Ironsides_--

 "Ay! Tear her tattered ensign down!"--

composed about 1830, when it was proposed by the government to take topieces the unseaworthy hulk of the famous old man-of-war, _Constitution_. Holmes's indignant protest--which has been a favoritesubject for school-boy declamation--had the effect of postponing thevessel's fate for a great many years. From 1830-35 the young poet waspursuing his medical studies in Boston and Paris, contributing now andthen some verses to the magazines. Of his life as a medical student inParis there are many pleasant reminiscences in his _Autocrat_ and otherwritings, as where he tells, for instance, of a dinner-party ofAmericans in the French capital, where one of the company brought tearsof homesickness into the eyes of his _sodales_ by saying that thetinkle of the ice in the champagne-glasses reminded him of thecow-bells in the rocky old pastures of New England. In 1836 he printedhis first collection of poems. The volume contained, among a number ofpieces broadly comic, like the _September Gale_, the _Music Grinders_, and the _Ballad of the Oyster-man_--which at once became widelypopular--a few poems of a finer and quieter temper, in which there wasa quaint blending of the humorous and the pathetic. Such were _MyAunt_ and the _Last Leaf_--which Abraham Lincoln found "inexpressiblytouching, " and which it is difficult to read without the double tributeof a smile and a tear. The volume contained also _Poetry: A MetricalEssay_, read before the Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, which was the first of that long line of capital occasional poems whichHolmes has been spinning for half a century with no sign of fatigue andwith scarcely any falling off in freshness; poems read or spoken orsung at all manner of gatherings, public and private, at Harvardcommencements, class days, and other academic anniversaries; atinaugurations, centennials, dedications of cemeteries, meetings ofmedical associations, mercantile libraries, Burns clubs, and NewEngland societies; at rural festivals and city fairs; openings oftheaters, layings of corner-stones, birthday celebrations, jubilees, funerals, commemoration services, dinners of welcome or farewell toDickens, Bryant, Everett, Whittier, Longfellow, Grant, Farragut, theGrand Duke Alexis, the Chinese embassy, and what not. Probably no poetof any age or clime has written so much and so well to order. He hasbeen particularly happy in verses of a convivial kind, toasts for bigcivic feasts, or post-prandial rhymes for the _petit comité_--the snuglittle dinners of the chosen few; his

 "The quaint trick to cram the pithy line That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine. "

And although he could write on occasion a _Song for a TemperanceDinner_, he has preferred to chant the praise of the punch bowl and to

 "feel the old convivial glow (unaided) o'er me stealing, The warm, champagny, old-particular-brandy-punchy feeling. "

It would be impossible to enumerate the many good things of this sortwhich Holmes has written, full of wit and wisdom, and of humor lightlydashed with sentiment and sparkling with droll analogies, sudden puns, and unexpected turns of rhyme and phrase. Among the best of them are_Nux Postcoenatica_, _A Modest Request_, _Ode for a Social Meeting_, _The Boys_, and _Rip Van Winkle, M. D_. Holmes's favorite measure, inhis longer poems, is the heroic couplet which Pope's example seems tohave consecrated forever to satiric and didactic verse. He writes aseasily in this meter as if it were prose, and with much of Pope'sepigrammatic neatness. He also manages with facility the anapaesticsof Moore and the ballad stanza which Hood had made the vehicle for hisdrolleries. It cannot be expected that verses manufactured to pop withthe corks and fizz with the champagne at academic banquets should muchoutlive the occasion; or that the habit of producing such verses ondemand should foster in the producer that "high seriousness" whichMatthew Arnold asserts to be one mark of all great poetry. Holmes'spoetry is mostly on the colloquial level, excellent society-verse, buteven in its serious moments too smart and too pretty to be taken verygravely; with a certain glitter, knowingness, and flippancy about it, and an absence of that self-forgetfulness and intense absorption in itstheme which characterize the work of the higher imagination. This israther the product of fancy and wit. Wit, indeed, in the old sense ofquickness in the perception of analogies, is the staple of his mind. His resources in the way of figure, illustration, allusion, andanecdote are wonderful. Age cannot wither him nor custom stale hisinfinite variety, and there is as much powder in his latestpyrotechnics as in the rockets which he sent up half a century ago. Yet, though the humorist in him rather outweighs the poet, he haswritten a few things, like the _Chambered Nautilus_ and _Homesick inHeaven_, which are as purely and deeply poetic as the _One-Hoss Shay_and the _Prologue_ are funny. Dr. Holmes is not of the stuff of whichidealists and enthusiasts are made. As a physician and a student ofscience, the facts of the material universe have counted for much withhim. His clear, positive, alert intellect was always impatient ofmysticism. He had the sharp eye of the satirist and the man of theworld for oddities of dress, dialect, and manners. Naturally thetranscendental movement struck him on its ludicrous side, and in his_After-Dinner Poem_, read at the Phi Beta Kappa dinner at Cambridge in1843, he had his laugh at the "Orphic odes" and "runes" of thebedlamite seer and bard of mystery

 "Who rides a beetle which he calls a 'sphinx. ' And O what questions asked in club-foot rhyme Of Earth the tongueless, and the deaf-mute Time! Here babbling 'Insight' shouts in Nature's ears His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres; There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb, With 'Whence am I?' and 'Wherefore did I come?'"

Curiously enough, the author of these lines lived to write anappreciative life of the poet who wrote the _Sphinx_. There was a gooddeal of toryism or social conservatism in Holmes. He acknowledged apreference for the man with a pedigree, the man who owned familyportraits, had been brought up in familiarity with books, and couldpronounce "view" correctly. Readers unhappily not of the "Brahmincaste of New England" have sometimes resented as snobbishness Holmes'sharping on "family, " and his perpetual application of certain favoriteshibboleths to other people's ways of speech. "The woman whocalc'lates is lost. "

 "Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope The careless lips that speak of soap for soap. . . . Do put your accents in the proper spot: Don't, let me beg you, don't say 'How?' for 'What?' The things named 'pants' in certain documents, A word not made for gentlemen, but 'gents. '"

With the rest of "society" he was disposed to ridicule the abolitionmovement as a crotchet of the eccentric and the long-haired. But whenthe civil war broke out he lent his pen, his tongue, and his own fleshand blood to the cause of the Union. The individuality of Holmes'swritings comes in part from their local and provincial bias. He hasbeen the laureate of Harvard College and the bard of Boston city, anurban poet, with a cockneyish fondness for old Boston ways andthings--the Common and the Frog Pond, Faneuil Hall and King's Chapeland the Old South, Bunker Hill, Long Wharf, the Tea Party, and the towncrier. It was Holmes who invented the playful saying that "BostonStatehouse is the hub of the solar system. "

In 1857 was started the _Atlantic Monthly_, a magazine which haspublished a good share of the best work done by American writers withinthe past generation. Its immediate success was assured by Dr. Holmes'sbrilliant series of papers, the _Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, 1858, followed at once by the _Professor at the Breakfast Table_, 1859, and later by the _Poet at the Breakfast Table_, 1873. The _Autocrat_is its author's masterpiece, and holds the fine quintessence of hishumor, his scholarship, his satire, genial observation, and ripeexperience of men and cities. The form is as unique and original asthe contents, being something between an essay and a drama; asuccession of monologues or table-talks at a typical Americanboarding-house, with a thread of story running through the whole. Thevariety of mood and thought is so great that these conversations nevertire, and the prose is interspersed with some of the author's choicestverse. The _Professor at the Breakfast Table_ followed too closely onthe heels of the _Autocrat_, and had less freshness. The third numberof the series was better, and was pleasantly reminiscent and slightlygarrulous, Dr. Holmes being now (1873) sixty-four years old, andentitled to the gossiping privilege of age. The personnel of the_Breakfast Table_ series, such as the landlady and the landlady'sdaughter and her son, Benjamin Franklin; the schoolmistress, the youngman named John, the Divinity Student, the Kohinoor, the Sculpin, theScarabaeus, and the Old Gentleman who sits opposite, are not fullydrawn characters, but outlined figures, lightly sketched--as is theAutocrat's wont--by means of some trick of speech, or dress, orfeature, but they are quite life-like enough for their purpose, whichis mainly to furnish listeners and foils to the eloquence and wit ofthe chief talker. 

In 1860 and 1867 Holmes entered the field of fiction with two"medicated novels, " _Elsie Venner_ and the _Guardian Angel_. The firstof these was a singular tale, whose heroine united with her veryfascinating human attributes something of the nature of a serpent; hermother having been bitten by a rattlesnake a few months before thebirth of the girl, and kept alive meanwhile by the use of powerfulantidotes. The heroine of the _Guardian Angel_ inherited lawlessinstincts from a vein of Indian blood in her ancestry. These two bookswere studies of certain medico-psychological problems. They preachedDr. Holmes's favorite doctrines of heredity and of the modified natureof moral responsibility by reason of transmitted tendencies which limitthe freedom of the will. In _Elsie Venner_, in particular, the weirdlyimaginative and speculative character of the leading motive suggestsHawthorne's method in fiction, but the background and the subsidiaryfigures have a realism that is in abrupt contrast with this, and givesa kind of doubleness and want of keeping to the whole. The Yankeecharacters, in particular, and the satirical pictures of New Englandcountry life are open to the charge of caricature. In the _GuardianAngel_ the figure of Byles Gridley, the old scholar, is drawn withthorough sympathy, and though some of his acts are improbable, he is, on the whole, Holmes's most vital conception in the region of dramaticcreation. 

James Russell Lowell (1819- ), the foremost of American critics and ofliving American poets, is, like Holmes, a native of Cambridge, and, like Emerson and Holmes, a clergyman's son. In 1855 he succeededLongfellow as professor of modern languages in Harvard College. Oflate years he has held important diplomatic posts, like Everett, Irving, Bancroft, Motley, and other Americans distinguished in letters, having been United States minister to Spain, and, under twoadministrations, to the court of St. James. Lowell is not sospontaneously and exclusively a poet as Longfellow, and his popularitywith the average reader has never been so great. His appeal has beento the few rather than the many, to an audience of scholars and of thejudicious rather than to the "groundlings" of the general public. Nevertheless his verse, though without the evenness, instinctive grace, and unerring good taste of Longfellow's, has more energy and a strongerintellectual fiber, while in prose he is very greatly the superior. His first volume, _A Year's Life_, 1841, gave some promise. In 1843 hestarted a magazine, the _Pioneer_, which only reached its third number, though it counted among its contributors Hawthorne, Poe, Whittier, andMiss Barrett (afterward Mrs. Browning). A second volume of poems, printed in 1844, showed a distinct advance, in such pieces as the_Shepherd of King Admetus_, _Rhoecus_, a classical myth, told inexcellent blank verse, and the same in subject with one of Landor'spolished intaglios; and the _Legend of Brittany_, a narrative poem, which had fine passages, but no firmness in the management of thestory. As yet, it was evident, the young poet had not found his theme. This came with the outbreak of the Mexican War, which was unpopular inNew England, and which the Free Soil party regarded as a slave-holders'war waged without provocation against a sister republic, and simply forthe purpose of extending the area of slavery. 

In 1846, accordingly, the _Biglow Papers_ began to appear in the_Boston Courier_, and were collected and published in book form in1848. These were a series of rhymed satires upon the government andthe war party, written in the Yankee dialect, and supposed to be thework of Hosea Biglow, a home-spun genius in a down-east country town, whose letters to the editor were indorsed and accompanied by thecomments of the Rev. Homer Wilbur, A. M. , pastor of the First Church inJaalam, and (prospective) member of many learned societies. The firstpaper was a derisive address to a recruiting sergeant, with adenunciation of the "nigger-drivin' States" and the "Northerndough-faces;" a plain hint that the North would do better to secedethan to continue doing dirty work for the South; and an expression ofthose universal peace doctrines which were then in the air, and towhich Longfellow gave serious utterance in his _Occultation of Orion_. 

 "Ez for war, I call it murder-- There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment for that; God hez said so plump an' fairly, It's as long as it is broad, An' you've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God. "

The second number was a versified paraphrase of a letter received fromMr. Birdofredom Sawin, "a yung feller of our town that was cussed foolenuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff arter a dram and fife, " and whofinds when he gets to Mexico that

 "This kind o' sogerin' aint a mite like our October trainin'. "

Of the subsequent papers the best was, perhaps, _What Mr. RobinsonThinks_, an election ballad, which caused universal laughter, and wason every body's tongue. 

The _Biglow Papers_ remain Lowell's most original contribution toAmerican literature. They are, all in all, the best political satiresin the language, and unequaled as portraitures of the Yankee character, with its cuteness, its homely wit, and its latent poetry. Under theracy humor of the dialect--which became in Lowell's hands a medium ofliterary expression almost as effective as Burns's AyrshireScotch--burned that moral enthusiasm and that hatred of wrong anddeification of duty--"Stern daughter of the voice of God"--which, inthe tough New England stock, stands instead of the passion in the bloodof southern races. Lowell's serious poems on political questions, suchas the _Present Crisis_, _Ode to Freedom_, and the _Capture of FugitiveSlaves_, have the old Puritan fervor, and such lines as

 "They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three, "

and the passage beginning

 "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, "

became watchwords in the struggle against slavery and disunion. Someof these were published in his volume of 1848 and the collected editionof his poems, in two volumes, issued in 1850. These also included hismost ambitious narrative poem, the _Vision of Sir Launfal_, anallegorical and spiritual treatment of one of the legends of the HolyGrail. Lowell's genius was not epical, but lyric and didactic. Themerit of _Sir Launfal_ is not in the telling of the story, but in thebeautiful descriptive episodes, one of which, commencing, "And what is so rare as a day in June? Then if ever come perfect days, "

is as current as any thing that he has written. It is significant ofthe lack of a natural impulse toward narrative invention in Lowellthat, unlike Longfellow and Holmes, he never tried his hand at a novel. One of the most important parts of a novelist's equipment he certainlypossesses, namely, an insight into character and an ability todelineate it. This gift is seen especially in his sketch of ParsonWilbur, who edited the _Biglow Papers_ with a delightfully pedanticintroduction, glossary, and notes; in the prose essay _On a CertainCondescension in Foreigners_, and in the uncompleted poem, _Fitz Adam'sStory_. See also the sketch of Captain Underhill in the essay on _NewEngland Two Centuries Ago_. 

The _Biglow Papers_ when brought out in a volume were prefaced byimaginary notices of the press, including a capital parody of Carlyle, and a reprint from the "Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss, " of the firstsketch--afterward amplified and enriched--of that perfect Yankee idyl, _The Courtin'_. Between 1862 and 1865 a second series of _BiglowPapers_ appeared, called out by the events of the civil war. Some ofthese, as, for instance, _Jonathan to John_, a remonstrance withEngland for her unfriendly attitude toward the North, were not inferiorto any thing in the earlier series; and others were even superior aspoems, equal, indeed, in pathos and intensity to any thing that Lowellhas written in his professedly serious verse. In such passages thedialect wears rather thin, and there is a certain incongruity betweenthe rustic spelling and the vivid beauty and power and the figurativecast of the phrase in stanzas like the following:

 "Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal, Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle? To him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men That rived the rebel line asunder?"

Charles Sumner, a somewhat heavy person, with little sense of humor, wished that the author of the _Biglow Papers_ "could have used goodEnglish. " In the lines just quoted, indeed, the bad English addsnothing to the effect. In 1848 Lowell wrote _A Fable for Critics_, something after the style of Sir John Suckling's _Session of thePoets_; a piece of rollicking doggerel in which he surveyed theAmerican Parnassus, scattering about headlong fun, sharp satire, andsound criticism in equal proportion. Never an industrious workman, like Longfellow, at the poetic craft, but preferring to wait for themood to seize him, he allowed eighteen years to go by, from 1850 to1868, before publishing another volume of verse. In the latter yearappeared _Under the Willows_, which contains some of his ripest andmost perfect work, notably _A Winter Evening Hymn to my Fire_, with itsnoble and touching close--suggested by, perhaps, at any rate recalling, the dedication of Goethe's _Faust_, "Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten;"

the subtle _Footpath_ and _In the Twilight_, the lovely little poems_Auf Wiedersehen_ and _After the Funeral_, and a number of spiritedpolitical pieces, such as _Villa Franca_ and the _Washers of theShroud_. This volume contained also his _Ode Recited at the HarvardCommemoration_ in 1865. This, although uneven, is one of the finestoccasional poems in the language, and the most important contributionwhich our civil war has made to song. It was charged with the graveemotion of one who not only shared the patriotic grief and exultationof his _alma mater_ in the sacrifice of her sons, but who felt a morepersonal sorrow in the loss of kindred of his own, fallen in the frontof battle. Particularly note-worthy in this memorial ode are thetribute to Abraham Lincoln, the third strophe beginning, "Many lovedTruth;" the exordium, "O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more!" andthe close of the eighth strophe, where the poet chants of the youthfulheroes who

 "Come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore and with the rays Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation. "

From 1857 to 1862 Lowell edited the _Atlantic Monthly_, and from 1863to 1872 the _North American Review_. His prose, beginning with anearly volume of _Conversations on Some of the Old Poets_, 1844, hasconsisted mainly of critical essays on individual writers, such asDante, Chaucer, Spenser, Emerson, Shakespeare, Thoreau, Pope, Carlyle, etc. , together with papers of a more miscellaneous kind, like_Witchcraft_, _New England Two Centuries Ago_, _My GardenAcquaintance_, _A Good Word for Winter_, _Abraham Lincoln_, etc. , etc. Two volumes of these were published in 1870 and 1876, under the title_Among My Books_, and another, _My Study Windows_, in 1871. As aliterary critic Lowell ranks easily among the first of living writers. His scholarship is thorough, his judgment keen, and he pours out uponhis page an unwithholding wealth of knowledge, humor, wit, andimagination from the fullness of an overflowing mind. His prose hasnot the chastened correctness and "low tone" of Matthew Arnold's. Itis rich, exuberant, and, sometimes overfanciful, running away intoexcesses of allusion or following the lead of a chance pun so assometimes to lay itself open to the charge of pedantry and bad taste. Lowell's resources in the way of illustration and comparison areendless, and the readiness of his wit and his delight in using it putmany temptations in his way. Purists in style accordingly take offenseat his saying that "Milton is the only man who ever got much poetry outof a cataract, and that was a cataract in his eye, " or of his speakingof "a gentleman for whom the bottle before him reversed the wonder ofthe stereoscope and substituted the Gascon _v_ for the _b_ inbinocular, " which is certainly a puzzling and roundabout fashion oftelling us that he had drunk so much that he saw double. The criticsalso find fault with his coining such words as "undisprivacied, " andwith his writing such lines as the famous one--from _The Cathedral_, 1870--

 "Spume-sliding down the baffled decuman. "

It must be acknowledged that his style lacks the crowning grace ofsimplicity, but it is precisely by reason of its allusive quality thatscholarly readers take pleasure in it. They like a diction that hasstuff in it and is woven thick, and where a thing is said in such a wayas to recall many other things. 

Mention should be made, in connection with this Cambridge circle, ofone writer who touched its circumference briefly. This was SylvesterJudd, a graduate of Yale, who entered the Harvard Divinity School in1837, and in 1840 became minister of a Unitarian church in Augusta, Maine. Judd published several books, but the only one of them at allrememberable was _Margaret_, 1845, a novel of which, Lowell said, in _AFable for Critics_, that it was "the first Yankee book with the soul ofDown East in it. " It was very imperfect in point of art, and itssecond part--a rhapsodical description of a sort of UnitarianUtopia--is quite unreadable. But in the delineation of the few chiefcharacters and of the rude, wild life of an outlying New Englandtownship just after the close of the Revolutionary War, as well as inthe tragic power of the catastrophe, there was genius of a high order. 

As the country has grown older and more populous, and works in alldepartments of thought have multiplied, it becomes necessary to drawmore strictly the line between the literature of knowledge and theliterature of power. Political history, in and of itself, scarcelyfalls within the limits of this sketch, and yet it cannot be altogetherdismissed, for the historian's art, at its highest, demandsimagination, narrative skill, and a sense of unity and proportion inthe selection and arrangement of his facts, all of which are literaryqualities. It is significant that many of our best historians havebegun authorship in the domain of imaginative literature: Bancroft withan early volume of poems; Motley with his historical romances, _MerryMount_ and _Morton's Hope_; and Parkman with a novel, _Vassall Morton_. The oldest of that modern group of writers that have given America anhonorable position in the historical literature of the world wasWilliam Hickling Prescott (1796-1859). Prescott chose for his themethe history of the Spanish conquests in the New World, a subject fullof romantic incident and susceptible of that glowing and perhapsslightly overgorgeous coloring which he laid on with a liberal hand. His completed histories, in their order, are the _Reign of Ferdinandand Isabella_, 1837; the _Conquest of Mexico_, 1843--a topic whichIrving had relinquished to him; and the _Conquest of Peru_, 1847. Prescott was fortunate in being born to leisure and fortune, but he haddifficulties of another kind to overcome. He was nearly blind, and hadto teach himself Spanish and look up authorities through the help ofothers, and to write with a noctograph or by amanuenses. 

George Bancroft (1800-91) issued the first volume of his great _Historyof the United States_ in 1834, and exactly half a century later thefinal volume of the work, bringing the subject down to 1789. Bancrofthad studied at Göttingen, and imbibed from the German historian Heerenthe scientific method of historical study. He had access to originalsources, in the nature of collections and state papers in thegovernmental archives of Europe, of which no American had hitherto beenable to avail himself. His history, in thoroughness of treatment, leaves nothing to be desired, and has become the standard authority onthe subject. As a literary performance merely, it is somewhat wantingin flavor, Bancroft's manner being heavy and stiff when compared withMotley's or Parkman's. The historian's services to his country havebeen publicly recognized by his successive appointments as secretary ofthe navy, minister to England, and minister to Germany. 

The greatest, on the whole, of American historians was John LothropMotley (1814-77), who, like Bancroft, was a student at Göttingen andUnited States minister to England. His _Rise of the Dutch Republic_, 1856, and _History of the United Netherlands_, published ininstallments from 1861 to 1868, equaled Bancroft's work in scientificthoroughness and philosophic grasp, and Prescott's in the picturesquebrilliancy of the narrative, while it excelled them both in itsmasterly analysis of great historic characters, reminding the reader, in this particular, of Macaulay's figure-painting. The episodes of thesiege of Antwerp and the sack of the cathedral, and of the defeat andwreck of the Spanish Armada, are as graphic as Prescott's famousdescription of Cortez's capture of the city of Mexico; while the elderhistorian has nothing to compare with Motley's vivid personal sketchesof Queen Elizabeth, Philip the Second, Henry of Navarre, and Williamthe Silent. The _Life of John of Barneveld_, 1874, completed thisseries of studies upon the history of the Netherlands, a theme to whichMotley was attracted because the heroic struggle of the Dutch forliberty offered, in some respects, a parallel to the growth ofpolitical independence in Anglo-Saxon communities, and especially inhis own America. 

The last of these Massachusetts historical writers whom we shallmention is Francis Parkman (1823- ), whose subject has the advantageof being thoroughly American. His _Oregon Trail_, 1847, a series ofsketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain life, originally contributed tothe _Knickerbocker Magazine_, displays his early interest in theAmerican Indians. In 1851 appeared his first historical work, the_Conspiracy of Pontiac_. This has been followed by the series entitled_France and England in North America_, the six successive parts ofwhich are as follows: the _Pioneers of France in the New World_, the_Jesuits in North America_; _La Salle and the Discovery of the GreatWest_; the _Old Régime in Canada_; _Count Frontenac and New France_;and _Montcalm and Wolfe_. These narratives have a wonderful vividness, and a romantic interest not inferior to Cooper's novels. Parkman madehimself personally familiar with the scenes which he described, andsome of the best descriptions of American woods and waters are to befound in his histories. If any fault is to be found with his books, indeed, it is that their picturesqueness and "fine writing" are alittle in excess. 

The political literature of the years from 1837 to 1861 hinged upon theantislavery struggle. In this "irrepressible conflict" Massachusettsled the van. Garrison had written in his _Liberator_, in 1830, "I willbe as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. I am inearnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat asingle inch; and I will be heard. " But the Garrisonian abolitionistsremained for a long time, even in the North, a small and despisedfaction. It was a great point gained when men of education and socialstanding, like Wendell Phillips (1811-84) and Charles Sumner (1811-74), joined themselves to the cause. Both of these were graduates ofHarvard and men of scholarly pursuits. They became the representativeorators of the antislavery party, Phillips on the platform and Sumnerin the Senate. The former first came before the public in his fieryspeech, delivered in Faneuil Hall December 8, 1837, before a meetingcalled to denounce the murder of Lovejoy, who had been killed at Alton, Ill. , while defending his press against a pro-slavery mob. ThenceforthPhillips's voice was never idle in behalf of the slave. His eloquencewas impassioned and direct, and his English singularly pure, simple, and nervous. He is perhaps nearer to Demosthenes than any otherAmerican orator. He was a most fascinating platform speaker on themesoutside of politics, and his lecture on the _Lost Arts_ was a favoritewith audiences of all sorts. 

Sumner was a man of intellectual tastes, who entered politicsreluctantly and only in obedience to the resistless leading of hisconscience. He was a student of literature and art; a connoisseur ofengravings, for example, of which he made a valuable collection. Hewas fond of books, conversation, and foreign travel, and in Europe, while still a young man, had made a remarkable impression in society. But he left all this for public life, and in 1851 was elected asWebster's successor to the Senate of the United States. Thereafter heremained the leader of the abolitionists in Congress until slavery wasabolished. His influence throughout the North was greatly increased bythe brutal attack upon him in the Senate chamber in 1856 by "BullyBrooks" of South Carolina. Sumner's oratory was stately and somewhatlabored. While speaking he always seemed, as has been wittily said, tobe surveying a "broad landscape of his own convictions. " His mostimpressive qualities as a speaker were his intense moral earnestnessand his thorough knowledge of his subject. The most telling of hisparliamentary speeches are perhaps his speech _On the Kansas-NebraskaBill_, of February 3, 1854, and _On the Crime against Kansas_, May 19and 20, 1856; of his platform addresses, the oration on the _TrueGrandeur of Nations_. 

1. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. _Voices of the Night_. _The Skeletonin Armor_. _The Wreck of the Hesperus_. _The Village Blacksmith_. _The Belfry of Bruges, and Other Poems_ (1846). _By the Seaside_. _Hiawatha_. _Tales of a Wayside Inn_. 

2. Oliver Wendell Holmes. _Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_. _ElsieVenner_. _Old Ironsides_. _The Last Leaf_. _My Aunt_. _The MusicGrinders_. _On Lending a Punch-Bowl_. _Nux Postcoenatica_. _A ModestRequest_. _The Living Temple_. _Meeting of the Alumni of HarvardCollege_. _Homesick in Heaven_. _Epilogue to the Breakfast TableSeries_. _The Boys_. _Dorothy Q_. _The Iron Gate_. 

3. James Russell Lowell. _The Biglow Papers_ (two series). _Under theWillows, and Other Poems_ (1868). _Rhoecus_. _The Shepherd of KingAdmetus_. _The Vision of Sir Launfal_. _The Present Crisis_. _TheDandelion_. _The Birch Tree_. _Beaver Brook_. _Essays on Chaucer_. _Shakespeare Once More_. _Dryden_. _Emerson, the Lecturer_. _Thoreau_. _My Garden Acquaintance_. _A Good Word for Winter_. _ACertain Condescension in Foreigners_. 

4. William Hickling Prescott. _The Conquest of Mexico_. 

5. John Lothrop Motley. _The United Netherlands_. 

6. Francis Parkman. _The Oregon Trail_. _The Jesuits in NorthAmerica_. 

7. _Representative American Orations_, volume v. Edited by AlexanderJohnston. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1884. 

[Transcriber's note: In the poem fragment "soap for soap" the o's ineach "soap" must be rendered with Unicode to appear correctly--in thefirst "soap", o-breve (Ux014F); in the second, o-macron (Ux014D). ]

CHAPTER VI. 

LITERATURE IN THE CITIES. 

1837-1861. 

Literature as a profession has hardly existed in the United Statesuntil very recently. Even now the number of those who supportthemselves by purely literary work is small, although the growth of thereading public and the establishment of great magazines, such as_Harper's_, the _Century_, and the _Atlantic_, have made a market forintellectual wares which forty years ago would have seemed a godsend topoorly paid Bohemians like Poe or obscure men of genius like Hawthorne. About 1840, two Philadelphia magazines--_Godey's Lady's Book_ and_Graham's Monthly_--began to pay their contributors twelve dollars apage, a price then thought wildly munificent. But the first magazineof the modern type was _Harper's Monthly_, founded in 1850. Americanbooks have always suffered, and still continue to suffer, from the wantof an international copyright, which has flooded the country with cheapreprints and translations of foreign works, with which the domesticproduct has been unable to contend on such uneven terms. With thefirst ocean steamers there started up a class of large-paged weekliesin New York and elsewhere, such as _Brother Jonathan_, the _New World_, and the _Corsair_, which furnished their readers with the freshestwritings of Dickens and Bulwer and other British celebrities within afortnight after their appearance in London. This still furtherrestricted the profits of native authors and nearly drove them from thefield of periodical literature. By special arrangement the novels ofThackeray and other English writers were printed in _Harper's_ ininstallments simultaneously with their issue in English periodicals. The _Atlantic_ was the first of our magazines which was foundedexpressly for the encouragement of home talent, and which had a purelyYankee flavor. Journalism was the profession which naturally attractedmen of letters, as having most in common with their chosen work and asgiving them a medium, under their own control, through which they couldaddress the public. A few favored scholars, like Prescott, were madeindependent by the possession of private fortunes. Others, likeHolmes, Longfellow, and Lowell, gave to literature such leisure as theycould get in the intervals of an active profession or of college work. Still others, like Emerson and Thoreau, by living in the country andmaking their modest competence--eked out in Emerson's case by lecturinghere and there--suffice for their simple needs, secured themselvesfreedom from the restraints of any regular calling. But, in default ofsome such _pou sto_, our men of letters have usually sought the citiesand allied themselves with the press. It will be remembered thatLowell started a short-lived magazine on his own account, and that heafterward edited the _Atlantic_ and the _North American_. Also thatRipley and Charles A. Dana betook themselves to journalism after thebreak-up of the Brook Farm Community. 

In the same way William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), the earliestAmerican poet of importance, whose impulses drew him to the solitudesof nature, was compelled to gain a livelihood, by conducting a dailynewspaper; or, as he himself puts it, was

 "Forced to drudge for the dregs of men, And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen. "

Bryant was born at Cummington, in Berkshire, the western-most county ofMassachusetts. After two years in Williams College he studied law, andpracticed for nine years as a country lawyer in Plainfield and GreatBarrington. Following the line of the Housatonic Valley, the socialand theological affiliations of Berkshire have always been closer withConnecticut and New York than with Boston and eastern Massachusetts. Accordingly, when in 1825 Bryant yielded to the attractions of aliterary career, he betook himself to New York city, where, after abrief experiment in conducting a monthly magazine, the _New York Reviewand Athenaeum_, he assumed the editorship of the _Evening Post_, aDemocratic and free-trade journal, with which he remained connectedtill his death. He already had a reputation as a poet when he enteredthe ranks of metropolitan journalism. In 1816 his _Thanatopsis_ hadbeen published in the _North American Review_, and had attractedimmediate and general admiration. It had been finished, indeed, twoyears before, when the poet was only in his nineteenth year, and was awonderful instance of precocity. The thought in this stately hymn wasnot that of a young man, but of a sage who has reflected long upon theuniversality, the necessity, and the majesty of death. Bryant's blankverse when at its best, as in _Thanatopsis_ and the _Forest Hymn_, isextremely noble. In gravity and dignity it is surpassed by no Englishblank verse of this century, though in rich and various modulation itfalls below Tennyson's _Ulysses_ and _Morte d'Arthur_. It wascharacteristic of Bryant's limitations that he came thus early intopossession of his faculty. His range was always a narrow one, andabout his poetry, as a whole, there is a certain coldness, rigidity, and solemnity. His fixed position among American poets is described inhis own _Hymn to the North Star_:

 "And thou dost see them rise, Star of the pole! and thou dost see them set. Alone, in thy cold skies, Thou keep'st thy old, unmoving station yet, Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train, Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main. "

In 1821 he read _The Ages_, a didactic poem, in thirty-five stanzas, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, and in the same yearbrought out his first volume of poems. A second collection appeared in1832, which was printed in London under the auspices of WashingtonIrving. Bryant was the first American poet who had much of an audiencein England, and Wordsworth is said to have learned _Thanatopsis_ byheart. Bryant was, indeed, in a measure, a scholar of Wordsworth'sschool, and his place among American poets corresponds roughly, thoughnot precisely, to Wordsworth's among English poets. With no humor, with somewhat restricted sympathies, with little flexibility oropenness to new impressions, but gifted with a high, austereimagination, Bryant became the meditative poet of nature. His bestpoems are those in which he draws lessons from nature, or sings of itscalming, purifying, and bracing influences upon the human soul. Hisoffice, in other words, is the same which Matthew Arnold asserts to bethe peculiar office of modern poetry, "the moral interpretation ofnature. " Poems of this class are _Green River_, _To a Water-fowl_, _June_, the _Death of the Flowers_, and the _Evening Wind_. The song, "O fairest of the rural maids, " which has more fancy than is common inBryant, and which Poe pronounced his best poem, has an obviousresemblance to Wordsworth's "Three years she grew in sun and shade, "and both of these nameless pieces might fitly be entitled--asWordsworth's is in Mr. Palgrave's _Golden Treasury_--"The Education ofNature. "

Although Bryant's career is identified with New York his poetry is allof New England. His heart was always turning back fondly to the woodsand streams of the Berkshire hills. There was nothing of that urbanstrain in him which appears in Holmes and Willis. He was, in especial, the poet of autumn, of the American October and the New England IndianSummer, that season of "dropping nuts" and "smoky light, " to whosesubtle analogy with the decay of the young by the New England disease, consumption, he gave such tender expression in the _Death of theFlowers_, and amid whose "bright, late quiet" he wished himself to passaway. Bryant is our poet of "the melancholy days, " as Lowell is ofJune. If, by chance, he touches upon June, it is not with the exultantgladness of Lowell in meadows full of bobolinks, and in the summer daythat is

 "simply perfect from its own resource, As to the bee the new campanula's Illuminate seclusion swung in air. "

Rather, the stir of new life in the clod suggests to Bryant by contrastthe thought of death; and there is nowhere in his poetry a passage ofdeeper feeling than the closing stanzas of _June_, in which he speaksof himself, by anticipation, as of one

 "Whose part in all the pomp that fills The circuit of the summer hills Is--that his grave is green. "

Bryant is, _par excellence_, the poet of New England wild flowers, theyellow violet, the fringed gentian--to each of which he dedicated anentire poem--the orchis and the golden-rod, "the aster in the wood andthe yellow sunflower by the brook. " With these his name will beassociated as Wordsworth's with the daffodil and the lesser celandine, and Emerson's with the rhodora. 

Except when writing of nature he was apt to be commonplace, and thereare not many such energetic lines in his purely reflective verse asthese famous ones from _The Battle-Field_:

 "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshipers. "

He added but slowly to the number of his poems, publishing a newcollection in 1840, another in 1844, and _Thirty Poems_ in 1864. Hiswork at all ages was remarkably even. _Thanatopsis_ was as mature asany thing that he wrote afterward, and among his later pieces the_Planting of the Apple Tree_ and the _Flood of Years_ were as fresh asany thing that he had written in the first flush of youth. Bryant'spoetic style was always pure and correct, without any tincture ofaffectation or extravagance. His prose writings are not important, consisting mainly of papers of the _Salmagundi_ variety contributed tothe _Talisman_, an annual published in 1827-30; some rather sketchystories, _Tales of the Glauber Spa_, 1832; and impressions of Europe, entitled _Letters of a Traveler_, issued in two series, in 1849 and1858. In 1869 and 1871 appeared his blank-verse translations of the_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, a remarkable achievement for a man of his age, and not excelled, upon the whole, by any recent metrical version ofHomer in the English tongue. Bryant's half-century of service as theeditor of a daily paper should not be overlooked. The _Evening Post_, under his management, was always honest, gentlemanly, and courageous, and did much to raise the tone of journalism in New York. 

Another Massachusetts poet, who was outside the Boston coterie, likeBryant, and, like him, tried his hand at journalism, was John GreenleafWhittier (1807- ). He was born in a solitary farm-house nearHaverhill, in the valley of the Merrimack, and his life has been passedmostly at his native place and at the neighboring town of Amesbury. The local color, which is very pronounced in his poetry, is that of theMerrimack from the vicinity of Haverhill to its mouth at Newburyport, aregion of hill-side farms, opening out below into wide marshes--"thelow, green prairies of the sea, " and the beaches of Hampton andSalisbury. The scenery of the Merrimack is familiar to all readers ofWhittier: the cotton-spinning towns along its banks, with theirfactories and dams, the sloping pastures and orchards of the backcountry, the sands of Plum Island and the level reaches of water meadowbetween which glide the broad-sailed "gundalows"--a local corruption ofgondola--laden with hay. Whittier was a farmer lad, and had only sucheducation as the district school could supply, supplemented by twoyears at the Haverhill Academy. In his _School Days_ he gives apicture of the little old country school-house as it used to be, theonly _alma mater_ of so many distinguished Americans, and to which manyothers who have afterward trodden the pavements of great universitieslook back so fondly as to their first wicket gate into the land ofknowledge. 

 "Still sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sunning; Around it still the sumachs grow And blackberry vines are running. 

 "Within the master's desk is seen, Deep-scarred by raps official, The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife's carved initial. "

A copy of Burns awoke the slumbering instinct in the young poet, and hebegan to contribute verses to Garrison's _Free Press_, published inNewburyport, and to the _Haverhill Gazette_. Then he went to Boston, and became editor for a short time of the _Manufacturer_. Next heedited the _Essex Gazette_, at Haverhill, and in 1830 he took charge ofGeorge D. Prentice's paper, the _New England Weekly Review_, atHartford, Conn. Here he fell in with a young Connecticut poet of muchpromise, J. G. C. Brainard, editor of the _Connecticut Mirror_, whose"Remains" Whittier edited in 1832. At Hartford, too, he published hisfirst book, a volume of prose and verse, entitled _Legends of NewEngland_, 1831, which is not otherwise remarkable than as showing hisearly interest in Indian colonial traditions--especially those whichhad a touch of the supernatural--a mine which he afterward worked togood purpose in the _Bridal of Pennacook_, the _Witch's Daughter_, andsimilar poems. Some of the _Legends_ testify to Brainard's influenceand to the influence of Whittier's temporary residence at Hartford. One of the prose pieces, for example, deals with the famous "MoodusNoises" at Haddam, on the Connecticut River, and one of the poems isthe same in subject with Brainard's _Black Fox of Salmon River_. Aftera year and a half at Hartford Whittier returned to Haverhill and tofarming. 

The antislavery agitation was now beginning, and into this he threwhimself with all the ardor of his nature. He became the poet of thereform as Garrison was its apostle, and Sumner and Phillips itsspeakers. In 1833 he published _Justice and Expediency_, a prose tractagainst slavery, and in the same year he took part in the formation ofthe American Antislavery Society at Philadelphia, sitting in theconvention as a delegate of the Boston abolitionists. Whittier was aQuaker, and that denomination, influenced by the preaching of JohnWoolman and others, had long since quietly abolished slavery within itsown communion. The Quakers of Philadelphia and elsewhere took anearnest though peaceful part in the Garrisonian movement. But it was astrange irony of fate that had made the fiery-hearted Whittier afriend. His poems against slavery and disunion have the martial ringof a Tyrtaeus or a Körner, added to the stern religious zeal ofCromwell's Ironsides. They are like the sound of the trumpet blownbefore the walls of Jericho, or the psalms of David denouncing woe uponthe enemies of God's chosen people. If there is any purely Puritanstrain in American poetry it is in the war-hymns of the Quaker "Hermitof Amesbury. " Of these patriotic poems there were three principalcollections: _Voices of Freedom_, 1849; _The Panorama, and OtherPoems_, 1856; and _In War Time_, 1863. Whittier's work as the poet offreedom was done when, on hearing the bells ring for the passage of theconstitutional amendment abolishing slavery, he wrote his splendid_Laus Deo_, thrilling with the ancient Hebrew spirit:

 "Loud and long Lift the old exulting song, Sing with Miriam by the sea-- He has cast the mighty down, Horse and rider sink and drown, He hath triumphed gloriously. "

Of his poems distinctly relating to the events of the civil war, thebest, or at all events the most popular, is _Barbara Frietchie_. _Ichabod_, expressing the indignation of the Free Soilers at DanielWebster's seventh of March speech in defense of the Fugitive Slave Law, is one of Whittier's best political poems, and not altogether unworthyof comparison with Browning's _Lost Leader_. The language ofWhittier's warlike lyrics is biblical, and many of his purelydevotional pieces are religious poetry of a high order and have beenincluded in numerous collections of hymns. Of his songs of faith anddoubt, the best are perhaps _Our Master_, _Chapel of the Hermits_, and_Eternal Goodness_; one stanza from the last of which is familiar;

 "I know not where his islands lift Their fronded palms in air, I only know I cannot drift, Beyond his love and care. "

But from politics and war Whittier turned gladly to sing the homelylife of the New England country-side. His rural ballads and idyls areas genuinely American as any thing that our poets have written, andhave been recommended, as such, to English working-men by Whittier'sco-religionist, John Bright. The most popular of these is probably_Maud Muller_, whose closing couplet has passed into proverb. _SkipperIreson's Ride_ is also very current. Better than either of them, aspoetry, is _Telling the Bees_. But Whittier's masterpiece in work of adescriptive and reminiscent kind is _Snow-Bound_, 1866, a New Englandfireside idyl which in its truthfulness recalls the _Winter Evening_ ofCowper's _Task_ and Burns's _Cotter's Saturday Night_, but in sweetnessand animation is superior to either of them. Although in some things aPuritan of the Puritans, Whittier has never forgotten that he is also aFriend, and several of his ballads and songs have been upon the subjectof the early Quaker persecutions in Massachusetts. The most impressiveof these is _Cassandra Southwick_. The latest of them, the _King'sMissive_, originally contributed to the _Memorial History of Boston_ in1880, and reprinted the next year in a volume with other poems, hasbeen the occasion of a rather lively controversy. The _Bridal ofPennacook_, 1848, and the _Tent on the Beach_, 1867, which contain someof his best work, were series of ballads told by different narrators, after the fashion of Longfellow's _Tales of a Wayside Inn_. As anartist in verse, Whittier is strong and fervid, rather than delicate orrich. He uses only a few metrical forms--by preference theeight-syllabled rhyming couplet--

 "Maud Muller on a summer's day Raked the meadow sweet with hay, " etc. 

and the emphatic tramp of this measure becomes very monotonous, as dosome of Whittier's mannerisms, which proceed, however, never fromaffectation, but from a lack of study and variety, and so, no doubt, inpart from the want of that academic culture and thorough technicalequipment which Lowell and Longfellow enjoyed. Though his poems arenot in dialect, like Lowell's _Biglow Papers_, he knows how to make anartistic use of homely provincial words, such as "chore, " which givehis idyls of the hearth and the barnyard a genuine Doric cast. Whittier's prose is inferior to his verse. The fluency which was abesetting sin of his poetry, when released from the fetters of rhymeand meter, ran into wordiness. His prose writings were partlycontributions to the slavery controversy, partly biographical sketchesof English and American reformers, and partly studies of the sceneryand folk-lore of the Merrimack Valley. Those of most literary interestwere the _Supernaturalism of New England_, 1847, and some of the papersin _Literary Recreations and Miscellanies_, 1854. 

While Massachusetts was creating an American literature other sectionsof the Union were by no means idle. The West, indeed, was as yet tooraw to add any thing of importance to the artistic product of thecountry. The South was hampered by circumstances which will presentlybe described. But in and about the sea-board cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Richmond many pens were busy filling thecolumns of literary weeklies and monthlies; and there was aconsiderable output, such as it was, of books of poetry, fiction, travel, and miscellaneous light literature. Time has already relegatedmost of these to the dusty top shelves. To rehearse the names of thenumerous contributors to the old _Knickerbocker Magazine_, to_Godey's_, and _Graham's_, and the _New Mirror_, and the _SouthernLiterary Messenger_, or to run over the list of authorlings andpoetasters in Poe's papers on the _Literati of New York_, would be verymuch like reading the inscriptions on the head-stones of an oldgrave-yard. In the columns of these prehistoric magazines and in thebook notices and reviews away back in the thirties and forties, oneencounters the handiwork and the names of Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow, Hawthorne, and Lowell embodied in this mass of forgotten literature. It would have required a good deal of critical acumen, at the time, topredict that these and a few others would soon be thrown out into boldrelief, as the significant and permanent names in the literature oftheir generation, while Paulding, Hirst, Fay, Dawes, Mrs. Osgood, andscores of others who figured beside them in the fashionableperiodicals, and filled quite as large a space in the public eye, wouldsink into oblivion in less than thirty years. Some of these latterwere clever enough people; they entertained their contemporary publicsufficiently, but their work had no vitality or "power of continuance. "The great majority of the writings of any period are necessarilyephemeral, and time by a slow process of natural selection isconstantly sifting out the few representative books which shall carryon the memory of the period to posterity. Now and then it may bepredicted of some undoubted work of genius, even at the moment that itsees the light, that it is destined to endure. But tastes and fashionschange, and few things are better calculated to inspire the literarycritic with humility than to read the prophecies in old reviews and seehow the future, now become the present, has quietly given them the lie. 

From among the professional _littérateurs_ of his day emerges, withever sharper distinctness as time goes on, the name of Edgar Allan Poe(1809-49). By the irony of fate Poe was born at Boston, and his firstvolume, _Tamerlane, and Other Poems_, 1827, was printed in that cityand bore upon its title-page the words, "By a Bostonian. " But hisparentage, so far as it was any thing, was Southern. His father was aMarylander who had gone upon the stage and married an actress, herselfthe daughter of an actress and a native of England. Left an orphan bythe early death of both parents, Poe was adopted by a Mr. Allan, awealthy merchant of Richmond, Va. He was educated partly at an Englishschool, was student for a time in the University of Virginia, andafterward a cadet in the Military Academy at West Point. His youth waswild and irregular; he gambled and drank, was proud, bitter, andperverse, finally quarreled with his guardian and adopted father--bywhom he was disowned--and then betook himself to the life of a literaryhack. His brilliant but underpaid work for various periodicals soonbrought him into notice, and he was given the editorship of the_Southern Literary Messenger_, published at Richmond, and subsequentlyof the _Gentlemen's_--afterward _Graham's_--_Magazine_ in Philadelphia. These and all other positions Poe forfeited through his dissipatedhabits and wayward temper, and finally, in 1844, he drifted to NewYork, where he found employment on the _Evening Mirror_ and then on the_Broadway Journal_. He died of delirium tremens at the Marine Hospitalin Baltimore. His life was one of the most wretched in literaryhistory. He was an extreme instance of what used to be called the"eccentricity of genius. " He had the irritable vanity which ispopularly supposed to accompany the poetic temperament, and was soinsanely egotistic as to imagine that Longfellow and others wereconstantly plagiarizing from him. The best side of Poe's charactercame out in his domestic relations, in which he displayed greattenderness, patience, and fidelity. His instincts were gentlemanly, and his manner and conversation were often winning. In the place ofmoral feeling he had the artistic conscience. In his critical papers, except where warped by passion or prejudice, he showed neither fear norfavor, denouncing bad work by the most illustrious hands and commendingobscure merit. The "impudent literary cliques" who puffed each other'sbooks; the feeble chirrupings of the bardlings who manufactured versesfor the "Annuals;" and the twaddle of the "genial" incapables whopraised them in flabby reviews--all these Poe exposed with ferocioushonesty. Nor, though his writings are unmoral, can they be called inany sense immoral. His poetry is as pure in its unearthliness asBryant's in its austerity. 

By 1831 Poe had published three thin books of verse, none of which hadattracted notice, although the latest contained the drafts of a few ofhis most perfect poems, such as _Israfel_, the _Valley of Unrest_, the_City in the Sea_, and one of the two pieces inscribed _To Helen_. Itwas his habit to touch and retouch his work until it grew under hismore practiced hand into a shape that satisfied his fastidious taste. Hence the same poem frequently re-appears in different stages ofdevelopment in successive editions. Poe was a subtle artist in therealm of the weird and the fantastic. In his intellectual nature therewas a strange conjunction; an imagination as spiritual as Shelley's, though, unlike Shelley's, haunted perpetually with shapes of fear andthe imagery of ruin; with this, an analytic power, a scientificexactness, and a mechanical ingenuity more usual in a chemist or amathematician than in a poet. He studied carefully the mechanism ofhis verse and experimented endlessly with verbal and musical effects, such as repetition and monotone and the selection of words in which theconsonants alliterated and the vowels varied. In his _Philosophy ofComposition_ he described how his best-known poem, the _Raven_, wassystematically built up on a preconceived plan in which the number oflines was first determined and the word "nevermore" selected as astarting-point. No one who knows the mood in which poetry is composedwill believe that this ingenious piece of dissection really describesthe way in which the _Raven_ was conceived and written, or that anysuch deliberate and self-conscious process could _originate_ theassociations from which a true poem springs. But it flattered Poe'spride of intellect to assert that his cooler reason had control notonly over the execution of his poetry, but over the very well-head ofthought and emotion. Some of his most successful stories, like the_Gold Bug_, the _Mystery of Marie Roget_, the _Purloined Letter_, andthe _Murders in the Rue Morgue_, were applications of this analyticfaculty to the solution of puzzles, such as the finding of buriedtreasure or of a lost document, or the ferreting out of a mysteriouscrime. After the publication of the _Gold Bug_ he received from allparts of the country specimens of cipher-writing, which he delighted towork out. Others of his tales were clever pieces of mystification, like _Hans Pfaall_, the story of a journey to the moon, or experimentsat giving verisimilitude to wild improbabilities by the skillfulintroduction of scientific details, as in the _Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar_ and _Von Kempelen's Discovery_. In his narratives of thiskind Poe anticipated the detective novels of Gaboriau and WilkieCollins, the scientific hoaxes of Jules Verne, and, though in a lessdegree, the artfully worked up likeness to fact in Edward EverettHale's _Man Without a Country_, and similar fictions. While Dickens's_Barnaby Rudge_ was publishing in parts Poe showed his skill as aplot-hunter by publishing a paper in _Graham's Magazine_ in which thevery tangled intrigue of the novel was correctly raveled and the finalepredicted in advance. 

In his union of imagination and analytic power Poe resembled Coleridge, who, if any one, was his teacher in poetry and criticism. Poe's verseoften reminds one of _Christabel_ and the _Ancient Mariner_, stilloftener of _Kubla Khan_. Like Coleridge, too, he indulged at times inthe opium habit. But in Poe the artist predominated over every thingelse. He began not with sentiment or thought, but with technique, withmelody and color, tricks of language, and effects of verse. It iscurious to study the growth of his style in his successive volumes ofpoetry. At first these are metrical experiments and vague images, original, and with a fascinating suggestiveness, but with so littlemeaning that some of his earlier pieces are hardly removed fromnonsense. Gradually, like distant music drawing nearer and nearer, hispoetry becomes fuller of imagination and of an inward significance, without ever losing, however, its mysterious aloofness from the realworld of the senses. It was a part of Poe's literary creed--formedupon his own practice and his own limitations, but set forth with agreat display of _a priori_ reasoning in his essay on the _PoeticPrinciple_ and elsewhere--that pleasure and not instruction or moralexhortation was the end of poetry; that beauty and not truth orgoodness was its means; and, furthermore, that the pleasure which itgave should be indefinite. About his own poetry there was always thisindefiniteness. His imagination dwelt in a strange country of dream--a"ghoul-haunted region of Weir, " "out of space, out of time"--filledwith unsubstantial landscapes and peopled by spectral shapes. And yetthere is a wonderful, hidden significance in this uncanny scenery. Thereader feels that the wild, fantasmal imagery is in itself a kind oflanguage, and that it in some way expresses a brooding thought orpassion, the terror and despair of a lost soul. Sometimes there is anobvious allegory, as in the _Haunted Palace_, which is the parable of aruined mind, or in the _Raven_, the most popular of all Poe's poems, originally published in the _American Whig Review_ for February, 1845. Sometimes the meaning is more obscure, as in _Ulalume_, which, to mostpeople, is quite incomprehensible, and yet to all readers of poeticfeeling is among the most characteristic, and, therefore, the mostfascinating, of its author's creations. 

Now and then, as in the beautiful ballad _Annabel Lee_, and _To One inParadise_, the poet emerges into the light of common human feeling andspeaks a more intelligible language. But in general his poetry is notthe poetry of the heart, and its passion is not the passion of fleshand blood. In Poe the thought of death is always near, and of theshadowy borderland between death and life. 

 "The play is the tragedy 'Man, ' And its hero the Conqueror Worm. "

The prose tale, _Ligeia_, in which these verses are inserted, is one ofthe most powerful of all Poe's writings, and its theme is the power ofthe will to overcome death. In that singularly impressive poem, _TheSleeper_, the morbid horror which invests the tomb springs from thesame source, the materiality of Poe's imagination, which refuses to letthe soul go free from the body. 

This quality explains why Poe's _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque_, 1840, are on a lower plane than Hawthorne's romances, to which a few ofthem, like _William Wilson_, and _The Man of the Crowd_, have someresemblance. The former of these, in particular, is in Hawthorne'speculiar province, the allegory of the conscience. But in general thetragedy in Hawthorne is a spiritual one, while Poe calls in the aid ofmaterial forces. The passion of physical fear or of superstitioushorror is that which his writings most frequently excite. These talesrepresent various grades of the frightful and the ghastly, from themere bugaboo story like the _Black Cat_, which makes children afraid togo in the dark, up to the breathless terror of the _Cask ofAmontillado_, or the _Red Death_. Poe's masterpiece in this kind isthe fateful tale of the _Fall of the House of Usher_, with its solemnand magnificent close. His prose, at its best, often recalls, in itsrichly imaginative cast, the manner of De Quincey in such passages ashis _Dream Fugue_, or _Our Ladies of Sorrow_. In descriptive pieceslike the _Domain of Arnheim_, and stories of adventure like the_Descent into the Maelstrom_, and his long sea-tale, _The Narrative ofArthur Gordon Pym_, 1838, he displayed, a realistic inventivenessalmost equal to Swift's or De Foe's. He was not without a mockingirony, but he had no constructive humor, and his attempts at thefacetious were mostly failures. 

Poe's magical creations were rootless flowers. He took no hold uponthe life about him, and cared nothing for the public concerns of hiscountry. His poems and tales might have been written _in vacuo_ forany thing American in them. Perhaps for this reason, in part, his famehas been so cosmopolitan. In France especially his writings have beenfavorites. Charles Baudelaire, the author of the _Fleurs du Mal_, translated them into French, and his own impressive but unhealthypoetry shows evidence of Poe's influence. The defect in Poe was incharacter--a defect which will make itself felt in art as in life. Ifhe had had the sweet home feeling of Longfellow or the moral fervor ofWhittier he might have been a greater poet than either. 

 "If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky!"

Though Poe was a Southerner, if not by birth, at least by race andbreeding, there was nothing distinctly Southern about his peculiargenius, and in his wandering life he was associated as much withPhiladelphia and New York as with Baltimore and Richmond. Theconditions which had made the Southern colonies unfruitful in literaryand educational works before the Revolution continued to act down tothe time of the civil war. Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-ginin the closing years of the last century gave extension to slavery, making it profitable to cultivate the now staple by enormous gangs offield-hands working under the whip of the overseer in largeplantations. Slavery became henceforth a business speculation in theStates furthest south, and not, as in Old Virginia and Kentucky, acomparatively mild domestic system. The necessity of defending itspeculiar institution against the attacks of a growing faction in theNorth compelled the South to throw all its intellectual strength intopolitics, which, for that matter, is the natural occupation andexcitement of a social aristocracy. Meanwhile immigration sought thefree States, and there was no middle class at the South. The "poorwhites" were ignorant and degraded. There were people of education inthe cities and on some of the plantations, but there was no greateducated class from which a literature could proceed. And the cultureof the South, such as it was, was becoming old-fashioned and local, asthe section was isolated more and more from the rest of the Union andfrom the enlightened public opinion of Europe by its reactionaryprejudices and its sensitiveness on the subject of slavery. Nothingcan be imagined more ridiculously provincial than the sophomoricaleditorials in the Southern press just before the outbreak of the war, or than the backward and ill-informed articles which passed for reviewsin the poorly supported periodicals of the South. 

In the general dearth of work of high and permanent value, one or twoSouthern authors may be mentioned whose writings have at least donesomething to illustrate the life and scenery of their section. When in1833 the Baltimore _Saturday Visitor_ offered a prize of a hundreddollars for the best prose tale, one of the committee who awarded theprize to Poe's first story, the _MS. Found in a Bottle_, was John P. Kennedy, a Whig gentleman of Baltimore, who afterward became secretaryof the navy in Fillmore's administration. The year before he hadpublished _Swallow Barn_, a series of agreeable sketches of countrylife in Virginia. In 1835 and 1838 he published his two novels, _Horse-Shoe Robinson_ and _Rob of the Bowl_, the former a story of theRevolutionary War in South Carolina, the latter an historical tale ofcolonial Maryland. These had sufficient success to warrant reprintingas late as 1852. But the most popular and voluminous of all Southernwriters of fiction was William Gilmore Simms, a South Carolinian, whodied in 1870. He wrote over thirty novels, mostly romances ofRevolutionary history, Southern life, and wild adventure, among thebest of which were the _Partisan_, 1835, and the _Yemassee_. Simms wasan inferior Cooper, with a difference. His novels are good boys'books, but are crude and hasty in composition. He was stronglySouthern in his sympathies, though his newspaper, the _Charleston CityGazette_, took part against the Nullifiers. His miscellaneous writingsinclude several histories and biographies, political tracts, addresses, and critical papers contributed to Southern magazines. He also wrotenumerous poems, the most ambitious of which was _Atlantis, a Story ofthe Sea_, 1832. His poems have little value except as here and thereillustrating local scenery and manners, as in _Southern Passages andPictures_, 1839. Mr. John Esten Cooke's pleasant but not very strong_Virginia Comedians_ was, perhaps, in literary quality the bestSouthern novel produced before the civil war. 

When Poe came to New York the most conspicuous literary figure of themetropolis, with the possible exception of Bryant and Halleck, was N. P. Willis, one of the editors of the _Evening Mirror_, upon whichjournal Poe was for a time engaged. Willis had made a literaryreputation, when a student at Yale, by his _Scripture Poems_, writtenin smooth blank verse. Afterward he had edited the _American Monthly_in his native city of Boston, and more recently he had published_Pencillings by the Way_, 1835, a pleasant record of Europeansaunterings; _Inklings of Adventure_, 1836, a collection of dashingstories and sketches of American and foreign life; and _Letters fromUnder a Bridge_, 1839, a series of charming rural letters from hiscountry place at Owego, on the Susquehanna. Willis's work, alwaysgraceful and sparkling, sometimes even brilliant, though light insubstance and jaunty in style, had quickly raised him to the summit ofpopularity. During the years from 1835 to 1850 he was the mostsuccessful American magazinist, and even down to the day of his death, in 1867, he retained his hold upon the attention of the fashionablepublic by his easy paragraphing and correspondence in the _Mirror_ andits successor, the _Home Journal_, which catered to the literary wantsof the _beau monde_. Much of Willis's work was ephemeral, thoughclever of its kind, but a few of his best tales and sketches, such as_F. Smith_, _The Ghost Ball at Congress Hall_, _Edith Linsey_, and the_Lunatic's Skate_, together with some of the _Letters from Under aBridge_, are worthy of preservation, not only as readable stories, butas society studies of life at American watering-places like Nahant andSaratoga and Ballston Spa half a century ago. A number of his simplerpoems, like _Unseen Spirits_, _Spring_, _To M---- from Abroad_, and_Lines on Leaving Europe_, still retain a deserved place in collectionsand anthologies. 

The senior editor of the _Mirror_, George P. Morris, was once a verypopular song-writer, and his _Woodman, Spare that Tree_, stillsurvives. Other residents of New York city who have written singlefamous pieces were Clement C. Moore, a professor in the GeneralTheological Seminary, whose _Visit from St. Nicholas_--"'Twas the NightBefore Christmas, " etc. --is a favorite ballad in every nursery in theland; Charles Fenno Hoffman, a novelist of reputation in his time, butnow remembered only as the author of the song _Sparkling and Bright_, and the patriotic ballad of _Monterey_; Robert H. Messinger, a nativeof Boston, but long resident in New York, where he was a familiarfigure in fashionable society, who wrote _Give Me the Old_, a fine odewith a choice Horatian flavor; and William Allen Butler, a lawyer andoccasional writer, whose capital satire of _Nothing to Wear_ waspublished anonymously and had a great run. Of younger poets, likeStoddard and Aldrich, who formerly wrote for the _Mirror_ and who arestill living and working in the maturity of their powers, it is notwithin the limits and design of this sketch to speak. But one of theircontemporaries, Bayard Taylor, who died American minister at Berlin, in1878, though a Pennsylvanian by birth and rearing, may be reckonedamong the "literati of New York. " A farmer lad from Chester County, who had learned the printer's trade and printed a little volume of hisjuvenile verses in 1844, he came to New York shortly after withcredentials from Dr. Griswold, the editor of _Graham's_, and obtainingencouragement and aid from Willis, Horace Greeley, and others, he setout to make the tour of Europe, walking from town to town in Germanyand getting employment now and then at his trade to help pay theexpenses of the trip. The story of these _Wanderjahre_ he told in his_Views Afoot_, 1846. This was the first of eleven books of travelwritten during the course of his life. He was an inveterate nomad, andhis journeyings carried him to the remotest regions--to California, India, China, Japan, and the isles of the sea, to Central Africa andthe Soudan, Palestine, Egypt, Iceland, and the "by-ways of Europe. " Hishead-quarters at home were in New York, where he did literary work forthe _Tribune_. He was a rapid and incessant worker, throwing off manyvolumes of verse and prose, fiction, essays, sketches, translations, and criticisms, mainly contributed in the first instance to themagazines. His versatility was very marked, and his poetry ranged from_Rhymes of Travel_, 1848, and _Poems of the Orient_, 1854, to idyls andhome ballads of Pennsylvania life, like the _Quaker Widow_ and the _OldPennsylvania Farmer_; and on the other side, to ambitious and somewhatmystical poems, like the _Masque of the Gods_, 1872--written in fourdays--and dramatic experiments like the _Prophet_, 1874, and _PrinceDeukalion_, 1878. He was a man of buoyant and eager nature, with agreat appetite for new experience, a remarkable memory, a talent forlearning languages, and a too great readiness to take the hue of hisfavorite books. From his facility, his openness to externalimpressions of scenery and costume and his habit of turning these atonce into the service of his pen, it results that there is something"newspapery" and superficial about most of his prose. It is reporter'swork, though reporting of a high order. His poetry too, though full ofglow and picturesqueness, is largely imitative, suggesting Tennyson notunfrequently, but more often Shelley. His spirited _Bedouin Song_, forexample, has an echo of Shelley's _Lines to an Indian Air_:

 "From the desert I come to thee On a stallion shod with fire; And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire. Under thy window I stand, And the midnight hears my cry; I love thee, I love but thee, With a love that shall not die. "

The dangerous quickness with which he caught the manner of other poetsmade him an admirable parodist and translator. His _Echo Club_, 1876, contains some of the best travesties in the tongue, and his greattranslation of Goethe's _Faust_, 1870-71--with its wonderfully closereproduction of the original meters--is one of the glories of Americanliterature. All in all, Taylor may unhesitatingly be put first amongour poets of the second generation--the generation succeeding that ofLongfellow and Lowell--although the lack in him of original geniusself-determined to a peculiar sphere, or the want of an inward fixityand concentration to resist the rich tumult of outward impressions, hasmade him less significant in the history of our literary thought thansome other writers less generously endowed. 

Taylor's novels had the qualities of his verse. They were profuse, eloquent, and faulty. _John Godfrey's Fortune_, 1864, gave a pictureof bohemian life in New York. _Hannah Thurston_, 1863, and the _Storyof Kennett_; 1866, introduced many incidents and persons from the oldQuaker life of rural Pennsylvania, as Taylor remembered it in hisboyhood. The former was like Hawthorne's _Blithedale Romance_, asatire on fanatics and reformers, and its heroine is a nobly conceivedcharacter, though drawn with some exaggeration. The _Story ofKennett_, which is largely autobiographic, has a greater freshness andreality than the others, and is full of personal recollections. Inthese novels, as in his short stories, Taylor's pictorial skill isgreater on the whole than his power of creating characters or inventingplots. 

Literature in the West now began to have an existence. Another youngpoet from Chester County, Pa. , namely, Thomas Buchanan Read, went toCincinnati, and not to New York, to study sculpture and painting, about1837, and one of his best-known poems, _Pons Maximus_, was written onthe occasion of the opening of the suspension bridge across the Ohio. Read came East, to be sure, in 1841, and spent many years in oursea-board cities and in Italy. He was distinctly a minor poet, butsome of his Pennsylvania pastorals, like the _Deserted Road_, have anatural sweetness; and his luxurious _Drifting_, which combines themethods of painting and poetry, is justly popular. _Sheridan'sRide_--perhaps his most current piece--is a rather forced production, and has been overpraised. The two Ohio sister poets, Alice and PhoebeCary, were attracted to New York in 1850, as soon as their literarysuccess seemed assured. They made that city their home for theremainder of their lives. Poe praised Alice Cary's _Pictures ofMemory_, and Phoebe's _Nearer Home_ has become a favorite hymn. Thereis nothing peculiarly Western about the verse of the Cary sisters. Itis the poetry of sentiment, memory, and domestic affection, entirelyfeminine, rather tame and diffuse as a whole, but tender and sweet, cherished by many good women and dear to simple hearts. 

A stronger smack of the soil is in the Negro melodies like _Uncle Ned_, _O Susanna_, _Old Folks at Home_, _'Way Down South_, _Nelly was aLady_, _My Old Kentucky Home_, etc. , which were the work, not of anySouthern poet, but of Stephen C. Foster, a native of Allegheny, Pa. , and a resident of Cincinnati and Pittsburg. He composed the words andmusic of these, and many others of a similar kind, during the years1847 to 1861. Taken together they form the most original and vitaladdition which this country has made to the psalmody of the world, andentitle Foster to the first rank among American song-writers. 

As Foster's plaintive melodies carried the pathos and humor of theplantation all over the land, so Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's _UncleTom's Cabin_, 1852, brought home to millions of readers the sufferingsof the Negroes in the "black belt" of the cotton-growing States. Thisis the most popular novel ever written in America. Hundreds ofthousands of copies were sold in this country and in England, and someforty translations were made into foreign tongues. In its dramatizedform it still keeps the stage, and the statistics of circulatinglibraries show that even now it is in greater demand than any othersingle book. It did more than any other literary agency to rouse thepublic conscience to a sense of the shame and horror of slavery; moreeven than Garrison's _Liberator_, more than the indignant poems ofWhittier and Lowell or the orations of Sumner and Phillips. Itpresented the thing concretely and dramatically, and in particular itmade the odious Fugitive Slave Law forever impossible to enforce. Itwas useless for the defenders of slavery to protest that the picturewas exaggerated, and that planters like Legree were the exception. Thesystem under which such brutalities could happen, and did sometimeshappen, was doomed. It is easy now to point out defects of taste andart in this masterpiece, to show that the tone is occasionallymelodramatic, that some of the characters are conventional, and thatthe literary execution is in parts feeble and in others coarse. Inspite of all, it remains true that _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ is a great book, the work of genius seizing instinctively upon its opportunity anduttering the thought of the time with a power that thrilled the heartof the nation and of the world. Mrs. Stowe never repeated her firstsuccess. Some of her novels of New England life, such as the_Minister's Wooing_, 1859, and the _Pearl of Orr's Island_, 1862, havea mild kind of interest, and contain truthful portraiture of provincialways and traits; while later fictions of a domestic type, like _Pinkand White Tyranny_ and _My Wife and I_, are really beneath criticism. 

There were other Connecticut writers contemporary with Mrs. Stowe: Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, for example, a Hartford poetess, formerly known as"the Hemans of America, " but now quite obsolete; and J. G. Percival, ofNew Haven, a shy and eccentric scholar, whose geological work was ofvalue, and whose memory is preserved by one or two of his simplerpoems, still in circulation, such as _To Seneca Lake_ and the _CoralGrove_. Another Hartford poet, Brainard--already spoken of as an earlyfriend of Whittier--died young, leaving a few pieces which show thathis lyrical gift was spontaneous and genuine, but had received littlecultivation. A much younger writer than either of these, Donald G. Mitchell, of New Haven, has a more lasting place in our literature, byvirtue of his charmingly written _Reveries of a Bachelor_, 1850, and_Dream Life_, 1852, stories which sketch themselves out in a series ofreminiscences and lightly connected scenes, and which always appealfreshly to young men because they have that dreamy outlook upon lifewhich is characteristic of youth. But, upon the whole, the mostimportant contribution made by Connecticut in that generation to theliterary stock of America was the Beecher family. Lyman Beecher hadbeen an influential preacher and theologian, and a sturdy defender oforthodoxy against Boston Unitarianism. Of his numerous sons anddaughters, all more or less noted for intellectual vigor andindependence, the most eminent were Mrs. Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher, the great pulpit orator of Brooklyn. Mr. Beecher was too busy a man togive more than his spare moments to general literature. His sermons, lectures, and addresses were reported for the daily papers and printedin part in book form; but these lose greatly when divorced from thelarge, warm, and benignant personality of the man. His volumes made upof articles in the _Independent_ and the _Ledger_, such as _StarPapers_, 1855, and _Eyes and Ears_, 1862, contain many delightful_morceaux_ upon country life and similar topics, though they are hardlywrought with sufficient closeness and care to take a permanent place inletters. Like Willis's _Ephemera_ they are excellent literaryjournalism, but hardly literature. 

We may close our retrospect of American literature before 1861 with abrief notice of one of the most striking literary phenomena of thetime--the _Leaves of Grass_ of Walt Whitman, published at Brooklyn in1855. The author, born at West Hills, Long Island, in 1819, had beenprinter, school-teacher, editor, and builder. He had scribbled a gooddeal of poetry of the ordinary kind, which attracted little attention, but finding conventional rhymes and meters too cramping a vehicle forhis need of expression, he discarded them for a kind of rhythmic chant, of which the following is a fair specimen:

 "Press close, bare-bosom'd night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing night! Night of south winds! night of the few large stars! Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night!"

The invention was not altogether a new one. The English translation ofthe psalms of David and of some of the prophets, the _Poems of Ossian_, and some of Matthew Arnold's unrhymed pieces, especially the _StrayedReveller_, have an irregular rhythm of this kind, to say nothing of theold Anglo-Saxon poems, like _Beowulf_, and the Scripture paraphrasesattributed to Caedmon. But this species of _oratio soluta_, carried tothe lengths to which Whitman carried it, had an air of novelty whichwas displeasing to some, while to others, weary of familiar measuresand jingling rhymes, it was refreshing in its boldness and freedom. There is no consenting estimate of this poet. Many think that hisso-called poems are not poems at all, but simply a bad variety ofprose; that there is nothing to him beyond a combination of affectationand indecency; and that the Whitman _culte_ is a passing "fad" of a fewliterary men, and especially of a number of English critics likeRossetti, Swinburne, Buchanan, etc. , who, being determined to havesomething unmistakably American--that is, different from any thingelse--in writings from this side of the water, before they willacknowledge any originality in them, have been misled into discoveringin Whitman "the poet of democracy. " Others maintain that he is thegreatest of American poets, or, indeed, of all modern poets; that he is"cosmic, " or universal, and that he has put an end forever to pulingrhymes and lines chopped up into metrical feet. Whether Whitman'spoetry is formally poetry at all or merely the raw material of poetry, the chaotic and amorphous impression which it makes on readers ofconservative tastes results from his effort to take up into his verseelements which poetry has usually left out--the ugly, the earthy, andeven the disgusting; the "under side of things, " which he holds not tobe prosaic when apprehended with a strong, masculine joy in life andnature seen in all their aspects. The lack of these elements in theconventional poets seems to him and his disciples like leaving out thesalt from the ocean, making poetry merely pretty and blinking wholeclasses of facts. Hence the naturalism and animalism of some of thedivisions in _Leaves of Grass_, particularly that entitled _Children ofAdam_, which gave great offense by its immodesty, or its outspokenness, Whitman holds that nakedness is chaste; that all the functions of thebody in healthy exercise are equally clean; that all, in fact, aredivine, and that matter is as divine as spirit. The effort to getevery thing into his poetry, to speak out his thought just as it comesto him, accounts, too, for his way of cataloguing objects withoutselection. His single expressions arc often unsurpassed fordescriptive beauty and truth. He speaks of "the vitreous pour of thefull moon, just tinged with blue, " of the "lisp" of the plane, of theprairies, "where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the squaremiles. " But if there is any eternal distinction between poetry andprose, the most liberal canons of the poetic art will never agree toaccept lines like these:

 "And [I] remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles; He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated, and passed north. "

Whitman is the spokesman of democracy and of the future; full ofbrotherliness and hope, loving the warm, gregarious pressure of thecrowd and the touch of his comrade's elbow in the ranks. He liked thepeople--multitudes of people; the swarm of life beheld from a Broadwayomnibus or a Brooklyn ferry-boat. The rowdy and the Negro truck-driverwere closer to his sympathy than the gentleman and the scholar. "Iloaf and invite my soul, " he writes; "I sound my barbaric yawp over theroofs of the world. " His poem _Walt Whitman_, frankly egotistic, simply describes himself as a typical, average man--the same as anyother man, and therefore not individual but universal. He has greattenderness and heartiness--"the good gray poet;" and during the civilwar he devoted himself unreservedly to the wounded soldiers in theWashington hospitals--an experience which he has related in the_Dresser_ and elsewhere. It is characteristic of his rough and readycomradery to use slang and newspaper English in his poetry, to callhimself Walt instead of Walter, and to have his picture taken in aslouch hat and with a flannel shirt open at the throat. His decriersallege that he poses for effect; that he is simply a backward eddy inthe tide, and significant only as a temporary reaction against ultracivilization--like Thoreau, though in a different way. But with allhis shortcomings in art there is a healthy, virile, tumultuous pulse oflife in his lyric utterance and a great sweep of imagination in hispanoramic view of times and countries. One likes to read him becausehe feels so good, enjoys so fully the play of his senses, and has sucha lusty confidence in his own immortality and in the prospects of thehuman race. Stripped of verbiage and repetition, his ideas are notmany. His indebtedness to Emerson--who wrote an introduction to the_Leaves of Grass_--is manifest. He sings of man and not men, and theindividual differences of character, sentiment, and passion, the_dramatic_ elements of life, find small place in his system. It is tooearly to say what will be his final position in literary history. Butit is noteworthy that the democratic masses have not accepted him yetas their poet. Whittier and Longfellow, the poets of conscience andfeeling, are the darlings of the American people. The admiration, andeven the knowledge of Whitman, are mostly esoteric, confined to theliterary class. It is also not without significance as to the ultimatereception of his innovations in verse that he has numerous parodists, but no imitators. The tendency among our younger poets is not towardthe abandonment of rhyme and meter, but toward the introduction of newstanza forms and an increasing carefulness and finish in the_technique_ of their art. It is observable, too, that in his mostinspired passages Whitman reverts to the old forms of verse; to blankverse, for example, in the _Man-of-War-Bird_:

 "Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, Waking renewed on thy prodigious pinions, " etc. ;

and elsewhere not infrequently to dactylic hexameters and pentameters:

 "Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river! . . . Far-swooping, elbowed earth! rich, apple-blossomed earth. "

Indeed, Whitman's most popular poem, _My Captain_, written after theassassination of Abraham Lincoln, differs little in form from ordinaryverse, as a stanza of it will show:

 "My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won. Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck, my captain lies Fallen, cold and dead. "

This is from _Drum Taps_, a volume of poems of the civil war. Whitmanhas also written prose having much the same quality as his poetry:_Democratic Vistas_, _Memoranda of the Civil War_, and, more recently, _Specimen Days_. His residence of late years has been at Camden, NewJersey, where a centennial edition of his writings was published in1876. 

1. William Cullen Bryant. _Thanatopsis_. _To a Water-fowl_. _GreenRiver_. _Hymn to the North Star_. _A Forest Hymn_. "_O Fairest ofthe Rural Maids_. " _June_. _The Death of the Flowers_. _The EveningWind_. _The Battle-Field_. _The Planting of the Apple-tree_. _TheFlood of Years_. 

2. John Greenleaf Whittier. _Cassandra Southwick_. _The New Wife andthe Old_. _The Virginia Slave Mother_. _Randolph of Roanoke_. _Barclay of Ury_. _The Witch of Wenham_. _Skipper Ireson's Ride_. _Marguerite_. _Maud Muller_. _Telling the Bees_. _My Playmate_. _Barbara Frietchie_. _Ichabod_. _Laus Deo_. _Snow-Bound_. 

3. Edgar Allan Poe. _The Raven_. _The Bells_. _Israfel_. _Ulalume_. _To Helen_. _The City in the Sea_. _Annabel Lee_. _To One inParadise_. _The Sleeper_. _The Valley of Unrest_. _The Fall of theHouse of Usher_. _Ligeia_. _William Wilson_. _The Cask ofAmontillado_. _The Assignation_. _The Masque of the Red Death_. _Narrative of A. Gordon Pym_. 

4. N. P. Willis. _Select Prose Writings_. New York: CharlesScribner's Sons. 1886. 

5. Mrs. H. B. Stowe. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. _Oldtown Folks_. 

6. W. G. Simms, _The Partisan_. _The Yemassee_. 

7. Bayard Taylor. _A Bacchic Ode_. _Hylas_. _Kubleh_. _The Soldierand the Pard_. _Sicilian Wine_. _Taurus_. _Serapion_. _TheMetempsychosis of the Pine_. _The Temptation of Hassan Ben Khaled_. _Bedouin Song_. _Euphorion_. _The Quaker Widow_. _John Reid_. _Lars_. _Views Afoot_. _By-ways of Europe_. _The Story of Kennett_. _The Echo Club_. 

8. Walt Whitman. _My Captain_. "_When Lilacs Last in the Door-yardBloomed_. " _Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking_. _Pioneers, OPioneers_. _The Mystic Trumpeter_. _A Woman at Auction_. _Sea-shoreMemoirs_. _Passage to India_. _Mannahatta_. _The Wound Dresser_. _Longings for Some_. 

9. _Poets of America_. By E. C. Stedman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin &Co. 1885. 

CHAPTER VII. 

LITERATURE SINCE 1861. 

A generation has nearly passed since the outbreak of the civil war, andalthough public affairs are still mainly in the hands of men who hadreached manhood before the conflict opened, or who were old enough atthat time to remember clearly its stirring events, the younger men whoare daily coming forward to take their places know it only bytradition. It makes a definite break in the history of our literature, and a number of new literary schools and tendencies have appeared sinceits close. As to the literature of the war itself, it was largely thework of writers who had already reached or passed middle age. All ofthe more important authors described in the last three chapterssurvived the Rebellion except Poe, who died in 1849, Prescott, who diedin 1859, and Thoreau and Hawthorne, who died in the second and fourthyears of the war, respectively. The final and authoritative history ofthe struggle has not yet been written, and cannot be written for manyyears to come. Many partial and tentative accounts have, however, appeared, among which may be mentioned, on the Northern side, HoraceGreeley's _American Conflict_, 1864-66; Vice-President Wilson's _Riseand Fall of the Slave Power in America_, and J. W. Draper's _AmericanCivil War_, 1868-70; on the Southern side Alexander H. Stephens's_Confederate States of America_, Jefferson Davis's _Rise and Fall ofthe Confederate States of America_, and E. A. Pollard's _Lost Cause_. These, with the exception of Dr. Draper's philosophical narrative, havethe advantage of being the work of actors in the political or militaryevents which they describe, and the disadvantage of being, therefore, partisan--in some instances passionately partisan. A store-house ofmaterials for the coming historian is also at hand in Frank Moore'sgreat collection, the _Rebellion Record_; in numerous regimentalhistories of special armies, departments, and battles, like W. Swinton's _Army of the Potomac_; in the autobiographies andrecollections of Grant and Sherman and other military leaders; in the"war papers, " lately published in the _Century_ magazine, and ininnumerable sketches and reminiscences by officers and privates on bothsides. 

The war had its poetry, its humors, and its general literature, some ofwhich have been mentioned in connection with Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, Whitman, and others, and some of which remain to be mentioned, as thework of new writers, or of writers who had previously made little mark. There were war-songs on both sides, few of which had much literaryvalue excepting, perhaps, James R. Randall's Southern ballad, _Maryland, My Maryland_, sung to the old college air of _LaurigerHoratius_, and the grand martial chorus of _John Brown's Body_, an oldMethodist hymn, to which the Northern armies beat time as they went"marching on. " Randall's song, though spirited, was marred by itsfire-eating absurdities about "vandals" and "minions" and "Northernscum, " the cheap insults of the Southern newspaper press. To furnishthe _John Brown_ chorus with words worthy of the music, Mrs. Julia WardHowe wrote her _Battle-Hymn of the Republic_, a noble poem, but rathertoo fine and literary for a song, and so never fully accepted by thesoldiers. Among the many verses which voiced the anguish and thepatriotism of that stern time, which told of partings and home-comings, of women waiting by desolate hearths, in country homes, for tidings ofhusbands and sons who had gone to the war; or which celebratedindividual deeds of heroism or sang the thousand private tragedies andheartbreaks of the great conflict, by far the greater number were oftoo humble a grade to survive the feeling of the hour. Among the bestor the most popular of them were Kate Putnam Osgood's _Driving Home theCows_, Mrs. Ethel Lynn Beers's _All Quiet Along the Potomac_; ForceytheWillson's _Old Sergeant_, and John James Piatt's _Riding to Vote_. Ofthe poets whom the war brought out, or developed, the most noteworthywere Henry Timrod, of South Carolina, and Henry Howard Brownell, ofConnecticut. During the war Timrod was with the Confederate Army ofthe West, as correspondent for the _Charleston Mercury_, and in 1864 hebecame assistant editor of the _South Carolinian_, at Columbia. Sherman's "march to the sea" broke up his business, and he returned toCharleston. A complete edition of his poems was published in 1873, sixyears after his death. The prettiest of all Timrod's poems is _Katie_, but more to our present purpose are _Charleston_--written in the timeof blockade--and the _Unknown Dead_, which tells

 "Of nameless graves on battle plains, Wash'd by a single winter's rains, Where, some beneath Virginian hills, And some by green Atlantic rills, Some by the waters of the West, A myriad unknown heroes rest. "

When the war was over a poet of New York State, F. M. Finch, sang ofthese and of other graves in his beautiful Decoration Day lyric, _TheBlue and the Gray_, which spoke the word of reconciliation andconsecration for North and South alike. 

Brownell, whose _Lyrics of a Day_ and _War Lyrics_ were publishedrespectively in 1864 and 1866, was private secretary to Farragut, onwhose flag-ship, the _Hartford_, he was present at several great navalengagements, such as the "Passage of the Forts" below New Orleans, andthe action off Mobile, described in his poem, the _Bay Fight_. Withsome roughness and unevenness of execution Brownell's poetry had a firewhich places him next to Whittier as the Körner of the civil war. Inhim, especially, as in Whittier, is that Puritan sense of therighteousness of his cause which made the battle for the Union a holywar to the crusaders against slavery:

 "Full red the furnace fires must glow That melt the ore of mortal kind; The mills of God are grinding slow, But ah, how close they grind!

 "To-day the Dahlgren and the drum Are dread apostles of his name; His kingdom here can only come By chrism of blood and flame. "

One of the earliest martyrs of the war was Theodore Winthrop, hardlyknown as a writer until the publication in the _Atlantic Monthly_ ofhis vivid sketches of _Washington as a Camp_, describing the march ofhis regiment, the famous New York Seventh, and its first quarters inthe Capitol at Washington. A tragic interest was given to these papersby Winthrop's gallant death in the action of Big Bethel, June 10, 1861. While this was still fresh in public recollection his manuscript novelswere published, together with a collection of his stories and sketchesreprinted from the magazines. His novels, though in parts crude andimmature, have a dash and buoyancy--an out-door air about them--whichgive the reader a winning impression of Winthrop's personality. Thebest of them is, perhaps, _Cecil Dreeme_, a romance that reminds one alittle of Hawthorne, and the scene of which is the New York Universitybuilding on Washington Square, a locality that has been furthercelebrated in Henry James's novel of _Washington Square_. 

Another member of this same Seventh Regiment, Fitz James O'Brien, anIrishman by birth, who died at Baltimore in 1862 from the effects of awound received in a cavalry skirmish, had contributed to the magazinesa number of poems and of brilliant though fantastic tales, among whichthe _Diamond Lens_ and _What Was It?_ had something of Edgar A. Poe'squality. Another Irish-American, Charles G. Halpine, under thepen-name of "Miles O'Reilly, " wrote a good many clever ballads of thewar, partly serious and partly in comic brogue. Prose writers of notefurnished the magazines with narratives of their experience at the seatof war, among papers of which kind may be mentioned Dr. Holmes's _MySearch for the Captain_, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and Colonel T. W. Higginson's _Army Life in a Black Regiment_, collected into a volume in1870. 

Of the public oratory of the war, the foremost example is theever-memorable address of Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of theNational Cemetery at Gettysburg. The war had brought the nation to itsintellectual majority. In the stress of that terrible fight there wasno room for buncombe and verbiage, such as the newspapers andstump-speakers used to dole out in _ante bellum_ days. Lincoln'sspeech is short--a few grave words which he turned aside for a momentto speak in the midst of his task of saving the country. The speech issimple, naked of figures, every sentence impressed with a sense ofresponsibility for the work yet to be done and with a sterndetermination to do it. "In a larger sense, " it says, "we cannotdedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. Thebrave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it farabove our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note norlong remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they didhere. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to theunfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so noblyadvanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great taskremaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increaseddevotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure ofdevotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not havedied in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth offreedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for thepeople, shall not perish from the earth. " Here was eloquence of adifferent sort from the sonorous perorations of Webster or the polishedclimaxes of Everett. As we read the plain, strong language of thisbrief classic, with its solemnity, its restraint, its "brave old wisdomof sincerity, " we seem to see the president's homely featuresirradiated with the light of coming martyrdom--

 "The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American. "

Within the past quarter of a century the popular school of Americanhumor has reached its culmination. Every man of genius who is ahumorist at all is so in a way peculiar to himself. There is no lackof individuality in the humor of Irving and Hawthorne and the wit ofHolmes and Lowell, but although they are new in subject and applicationthey are not new in kind. Irving, as we have seen, was the literarydescendant of Addison. The character-sketches in _Bracebridge Hall_are of the same family with Sir Roger de Coverley and the other figuresof the Spectator Club. _Knickerbocker's History of New York_, thoughpurely American in its matter, is not distinctly American in itsmethod, which is akin to the mock heroic of Fielding and the irony ofSwift in the _Voyage to Lilliput_. Irving's humor, like that of allthe great English humorists, had its root in the perception ofcharacter--of the characteristic traits of men and classes of men, asground of amusement. It depended for its effect, therefore, upon itstruthfulness, its dramatic insight and sympathy, as did the humor ofShakespeare, of Sterne, Lamb, and Thackeray. This perception of thecharacteristic, when pushed to excess, issues in grotesque andcaricature, as in some of Dickens's inferior creations, which arelittle more than personified single tricks of manner, speech, feature, or dress. Hawthorne's rare humor differed from Irving's in temper butnot in substance, and belonged, like Irving's, to the English variety. Dr. Holmes's more pronouncedly comic verse does not differ specificallyfrom the _facetiae_ of Thomas Hood, but his prominent trait is wit, which is the laughter of the head as humor is of the heart. The sameis true, with qualifications, of Lowell, whose _Biglow Papers_, thoughhumor of an original sort in their revelation of Yankee character, areessentially satirical. It is the cleverness, the shrewdness of thehits in the _Biglow Papers_, their logical, that is, _witty_ character, as distinguished from their drollery, that arrests the attention. Theyare funny, but they are not so funny as they are smart. In all thesewriters humor was blent with more serious qualities, which gavefineness and literary value to their humorous writings. Their view oflife was not exclusively comic. But there has been a class of jesters, of professional humorists, in America, whose product is so indigenous, so different, if not in essence, yet at least in form and expression, from any European humor, that it may be regarded as a unique additionto the comic literature of the world. It has been accepted as such inEngland, where Artemus Ward and Mark Twain are familiar to multitudeswho have never read the _One Hoss-Shay_ or _The Courtin'_. And thoughit would be ridiculous to maintain that either of these writers takesrank with Lowell and Holmes, or to deny that there is an amount offlatness and coarseness in many of their labored fooleries which putslarge portions of their writings below the line where real literaturebegins, still it will not do to ignore them as mere buffoons, or evento predict that their humors will soon be forgotten. It is true thatno literary fashion is more subject to change than the fashion of ajest, and that jokes that make one generation laugh seem insipid to thenext. But there is something perennial in the fun of Rabelais, whomBacon called "the great jester of France, " and though the puns ofShakespeare's clowns are detestable the clowns themselves have not losttheir power to amuse. 

The Americans are not a gay people, but they are fond of a joke. Lincoln's "little stories" were characteristically Western, and it isdoubtful whether he was more endeared to the masses by his solidvirtues than by the humorous perception which made him one of them. The humor of which we are speaking now is a strictly popular andnational possession. Though America has never, or not until lately, had a comic paper ranking with _Punch_ or _Charivari_ or the _FliegendeBlätter_, every newspaper has had its funny column. Our humorists havebeen graduated from the journalist's desk and sometimes from theprinting-press, and now and then a local or country newspaper has riseninto sudden prosperity from the possession of a new humorist, as in thecase of G. D. Prentice's _Courier Journal_, or more recently of the_Cleveland Plaindealer_, the _Danbury News_, the _Burlington Hawkeye_, the _Arkansaw Traveller_, the _Texas Siftings_, and numerous others. Nowadays there are even syndicates of humorists, who co-operate tosupply fun for certain groups of periodicals. Of course, the greatmajority of these manufacturers of jests for newspapers and comicalmanacs are doomed to swift oblivion. But it is not so certain thatthe best of the class, like Clemens and Browne, will not long continueto be read as illustrative of one side of the American mind, or thattheir best things will not survive as long as the _mots_ of SydneySmith, which are still as current as ever. One of the earliest of themwas Seba Smith, who, under the name of "Major Jack Downing, " did hisbest to make Jackson's administration ridiculous. B. P. Shillaber's"Mrs. Partington"--a sort of American Mrs. Malaprop--enjoyed greatvogue before the war. Of a somewhat higher kind were the_Phoenixiana_, 1855, and _Squibob Papers_, 1856, of Lieutenant GeorgeH. Derby, "John Phoenix, " one of the pioneers of literature on thePacific coast at the time of the California gold fever of '49. Derby'sproposal for _A New System of English Grammar_, his satirical accountof the topographical survey of the two miles of road between SanFrancisco and the Mission Dolores, and his picture gallery made out ofthe conventional houses, steam-boats, rail-cars, runaway Negroes, andother designs which used to figure in the advertising columns of thenewspapers, were all very ingenious and clever. But all these palebefore Artemus Ward--"Artemus the delicious, " as Charles Reade calledhim--who first secured for this peculiarly American type of humor ahearing and reception abroad. Ever since the invention of HoseaBiglow, an imaginary personage of some sort, under cover of whom theauthor might conceal his own identity, has seemed a necessity to ourhumorists. Artemus Ward was a traveling showman who went about thecountry exhibiting a collection of wax "figgers" and whose experiencesand reflections were reported in grammar and spelling of a mostingeniously eccentric kind. His inventor was Charles F. Browne, originally of Maine, a printer by trade and afterward a newspaperwriter and editor at Boston, Toledo, and Cleveland, where hiscomicalities in the _Plaindealer_ first began to attract notice. In1860 he came to New York and joined the staff of _Vanity Fair_, a comicweekly of much brightness, which ran a short career and perished forwant of capital. When Browne began to appear as a public lecturer, people who had formed an idea of him from his impersonation of theshrewd and vulgar old showman were surprised to find him agentlemanly-looking young man, who came upon the platform in correctevening dress, and "spoke his piece" in a quiet and somewhat mournfulmanner, stopping in apparent surprise when any one in the audiencelaughed at any uncommonly outrageous absurdity. In London, where hedelivered his _Lecture on the Mormons_, in 1806, the gravity of hisbearing at first imposed upon his hearers, who had come to the hall insearch of instructive information and were disappointed at theinadequate nature of the panorama which Browne had had made toillustrate his lecture. Occasionally some hitch would occur in themachinery of this and the lecturer would leave the rostrum for a fewmoments to "work the moon" that shone upon the Great Salt Lake, apologizing on his return on the ground, that he was "a man short" andoffering "to pay a good salary to any respectable boy of good parentageand education who is a good moonist. " When it gradually dawned uponthe British intellect that these and similar devices of thelecturer--such as the soft music which he had the pianist play atpathetic passages--nay, that the panorama and even the lecture itselfwere of a humorous intention, the joke began to take, and Artemus'ssuccess in England became assured. He was employed as one of theeditors of _Punch_, but died at Southampton in the year following. 

Some of Artemus Ward's effects were produced, by cacography or badspelling, but there was genius in the wildly erratic way in which hehandled even this rather low order of humor. It is a curiouscommentary on the wretchedness of our English orthography that thephonetic spelling of a word, as for example, _wuz_ for _was_, should bein itself an occasion of mirth. Other verbal effects of a differentkind were among his devices, as in the passage where the seventeenwidows of a deceased Mormon offered themselves to Artemus. 

"And I said, 'Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?'They hove a sigh--seventeen sighs of different size. They said:

"'O, soon thou will be gonested away. '

"I told them that when I got ready to leave a place I wentested. 

"They said, 'Doth not like us?'

"I said, 'I doth--I doth. '

"I also said, 'I hope your intentions are honorable, as I am a lonechild--my parents being far--far away. '

"They then said, 'Wilt not marry us?'

"I said, 'O no, it cannot was. '

"When they cried, 'O cruel man! this is too much!--O! too much, ' I toldthem that it was on account of the muchness that I declined. "

It is hard to define the difference between the humor of one writer andanother, or of one nation and another. It can be felt and can beillustrated by quoting examples, but scarcely described in generalterms. It has been said of that class of American humorists of whichArtemus Ward is a representative that their peculiarity consists inextravagance, surprise, audacity, and irreverence. But all thesequalities have characterized other schools of humor. There is the sameelement of surprise in De Quincey's anti-climax, "Many a man has datedhis ruin from some murder or other which, perhaps, at the time hethought little of, " as in Artemus's truism that "a comic paper ought topublish a joke now and then. " The violation of logic which makes uslaugh at an Irish bull is likewise the source of the humor in Artemus'ssaying of Jeff Davis, that "it would have been better than ten dollarsin his pocket if he had never been born;" or in his advice, "Alwayslive within your income, even if you have to borrow money to do so;"or, again, in his announcement that "Mr. Ward will pay no debts of hisown contracting. " A kind of ludicrous confusion, caused by an unusualcollocation of words, is also one of his favorite tricks, as when hesays of Brigham Young, "He's the most married man I ever saw in mylife;" or when, having been drafted at several hundred different placeswhere he had been exhibiting his wax figures, he says that if he wenton he should soon become a regiment, and adds, "I never knew that therewas so many of me. " With this a whimsical understatement and anaffectation of simplicity, as where he expresses his willingness tosacrifice "even his wife's relations" on the altar of patriotism; orwhere, in delightful unconsciousness of his own sins againstorthography, he pronounces that "Chaucer was a great poet but hecouldn't spell, " or where he says of the feast of raw dog, tendered himby the Indian chief, Wocky-bocky, "It don't agree with me. I prefersimple food. " On the whole, it may be said of original humor of thiskind, as of other forms of originality in literature, that the elementsof it are old, but their combinations are novel. Other humorists, likeHenry W. Shaw ("Josh Billings") and David R. Locke ("Petroleum V. Nasby"), have used bad spelling as a part of their machinery; whileRobert H. Newell ("Orpheus C. Kerr"), Samuel L. Clemens ("Mark Twain"), and more recently "Bill Nye, " though belonging to the same school oflow or broad comedy, have discarded cacography. Of these the mosteminent, by all odds, is Mark Twain, who has probably made more peoplelaugh than any other living writer. A Missourian by birth (1835), heserved the usual apprenticeship at type-setting and editing countrynewspapers; spent seven years as a pilot on a Mississippi steam-boat, and seven years more mining and journalizing in Nevada, where heconducted the Virginia City _Enterprise_; finally drifted to SanFrancisco, and was associated with Bret Harte on the _Californian_, andin 1867 published his first book, _The Jumping Frog_. This wassucceeded by the _Innocents Abroad_, 1869; _Roughing It_, 1872; _ATramp Abroad_, 1880, and by others not so good. 

Mark Twain's drolleries have frequently the same air of innocence andsurprise as Artemus Ward's, and there is a like suddenness in his turnsof expression, as where he speaks of "the calm confidence of aChristian with four aces. " If he did not originate, he at any rateemployed very effectively that now familiar device of the newspaper"funny man, " of putting a painful situation euphemistically, as when hesays of a man who was hanged, that he "received injuries whichterminated in his death. " He uses to the full extent the Americanhumorist's favorite resources of exaggeration and irreverence. Aninstance of the former quality may be seen in his famous description ofa dog chasing a coyote, in _Roughing It_, or in his interview with thelightning-rod agent in Mark Twain's _Sketches_, 1875. He is a shrewdobserver, and his humor has a more satirical side than Artemus Ward's, sometimes passing into downright denunciation. He delightsparticularly in ridiculing sentimental humbug and moralizing cant. Heruns atilt, as has been said, at "copy-book texts, " at the temperancereformer, the tract distributer, the Good Boy of Sunday-schoolliterature, and the women who send bouquets and sympathetic letters tointeresting criminals. He gives a ludicrous turn to famous historicalanecdotes, such as the story of George Washington and his littlehatchet; burlesques the time-honored adventure, in nautical romances, of the starving crew casting lots in the long-boat, and spoils thedignity of antiquity by modern trivialities, saying of a discontentedsailor on Columbus's ship, "He wanted fresh shad. " The fun of_Innocents Abroad_ consists in this irreverent application of modern, common sense, utilitarian, democratic standards to the memorable placesand historic associations of Europe. Tried by this test the OldMasters in the picture galleries become laughable, Abelard was aprecious scoundrel, and the raptures of the guide-books are parodiedwithout mercy. The tourist weeps at the grave of Adam. At Genoa hedrives the _cicerone_ to despair by pretending never to have heard ofChristopher Columbus, and inquiring innocently, "Is he dead?" It isEurope vulgarized and stripped of its illusions--Europe seen by aWestern newspaper reporter without any "historic imagination. "

The method of this whole class of humorists is the opposite ofAddison's or Irving's or Thackeray's. It does not amuse by theperception of the characteristic. It is not founded upon truth, butupon incongruity, distortion, unexpectedness. Every thing in life isreversed, as in opera bouffe, and turned topsy-turvy, so that paradoxtakes the place of the natural order of things. Nevertheless they havesupplied a wholesome criticism upon sentimental excesses, and the worldis in their debt for many a hearty laugh. 

In the _Atlantic Monthly_ for December, 1863, appeared a tale entitled_The Man Without a Country_, which made a great sensation, and did muchto strengthen patriotic feeling in one of the darkest hours of thenation's history. It was the story of one Philip Nolan, an armyofficer, whose head had been turned by Aaron Burr, and who, having beencensured by a court-martial for some minor offense; exclaimedpetulantly, upon mention being made of the United States government, "Damn the United States! I wish that I might never hear the UnitedStates mentioned again. " Thereupon he was sentenced to have his wish, and was kept all his life aboard the vessels of the navy, being sentoff on long voyages and transferred from ship to ship, with orders tothose in charge that his country and its concerns should never bespoken of in his presence. Such an air of reality was given to thenarrative by incidental references to actual persons and occurrencesthat many believed it true, and some were found who remembered PhilipNolan, but had heard different versions of his career. The author ofthis clever hoax--if hoax it may be called--was Edward Everett Hale, aUnitarian clergyman of Boston, who published a collection of stories in1868, under the fantastic title, _If, Yes, and Perhaps_, indicatingthereby that some of the tales were possible, some of them probable, and others might even be regarded as essentially true. A similarcollection, _His Level Best, and Other Stories_, was published in 1873, and in the interval three volumes of a somewhat different kind, the_Ingham Papers_ and _Sybaris and Other Homes_, both in 1869, and _TenTimes One Is Ten_, in 187l. The author shelters himself behind theimaginary figure of Captain Frederic Ingham, pastor of the SandemanianChurch at Naguadavick, and the same characters have a way ofre-appearing in his successive volumes as old friends of the reader, which is pleasant at first, but in the end a little tiresome. Mr. Haleis one of the most original and ingenious of American story-writers. The old device of making wildly improbable inventions appear like factby a realistic treatment of details--a device employed by Swift andEdgar Poe, and more lately by Jules Verne--became quite fresh and novelin his hands, and was managed with a humor all his own. Some of hisbest stories are _My Double and How He Undid Me_, describing how a busyclergyman found an Irishman who looked so much like himself that hetrained him to pass as his duplicate, and sent him to do duty in hisstead at public meetings, dinners, etc. , thereby escaping bores andgetting time for real work; the _Brick Moon_, a story of a projectilebuilt and launched into space, to revolve in a fixed meridian about theearth and serve mariners as a mark of longitude; the _Rag Man and RagWoman_, a tale of an impoverished couple who made a competence bysaving the pamphlets, advertisements, wedding-cards, etc. , that came tothem through the mail, and developing a paper business on that basis;and the _Skeleton in the Closet_, which shows how the fate of theSouthern Confederacy was involved in the adventures of a certainhoop-skirt, "built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark. " Mr. Hale's historical scholarship and his habit of detail have aided him inthe art of giving _vraisemblance_ to absurdities. He is known inphilanthropy as well as in letters, and his tales have a cheerful, busy, practical way with them in consonance with his motto, "Look upand not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lenda hand. "

It is too soon to sum up the literary history of the last quarter of acentury. The writers who have given it shape are still writing, andtheir work is therefore incomplete. But on the slightest review of ittwo facts become manifest; first, that New England has lost its longmonopoly; and, secondly, that a marked feature of the period is thegrowth of realistic fiction. The electric tension of the atmospherefor thirty years preceding the civil war, the storm and stressof great public contests, and the intellectual stir produced bytranscendentalism seem to have been more favorable to poetry andliterary idealism than present conditions are. At all events there areno new poets who rank with Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, and others ofthe elder generation, although George H. Boker, in Philadelphia, R. H. Stoddard and E. C. Stedman, in New York, and T. B. Aldrich, first inNew York and afterward in Boston, have written creditable verse; not tospeak of younger writers, whose work, however, for the most part, hasbeen more distinguished by delicacy of execution than by nativeimpulse. Mention has been made of the establishment of _Harper'sMonthly Magazine_, which, under the conduct of its accomplished editor, George W. Curtis, has provided the public with an abundance of goodreading. The old _Putnam's Monthly_, which ran from 1853 to 1858, andhad a strong corps of contributors, was revived in 1868, and continuedby that name till 1870, when it was succeeded by _Scribner's Monthly_, under the editorship of Dr. J. G. Holland, and this in 1881 by the_Century_, an efficient rival of _Harper's_ in circulation, in literaryexcellence, and in the beauty of its wood-engravings, the Americanschool of which art these two great periodicals have done much todevelop and encourage. Another New York monthly, the _Galaxy_, ranfrom 1866 to 1878, and was edited by Richard Grant White. Within thelast few years a new _Scribner's Magazine_ has also taken the field. The _Atlantic_, in Boston, and _Lippincott's_, in Philadelphia, are nounworthy competitors with these for public favor. 

During the forties began a new era of national expansion, somewhatresembling that described in a former chapter, and, like that, bearingfruit eventually in literature. The cession of Florida to the UnitedStates in 1845, and the annexation of Texas in the same year, werefollowed by the purchase of California in 1847, and its admission as aState in 1850. In 1849 came the great rush to the California goldfields. San Francisco, at first a mere collection of tents and boardshanties, with a few adobe huts, grew with incredible rapidity into agreat city--the wicked and wonderful city apostrophized by Bret Hartein his poem, _San Francisco_:

 "Serene, indifferent of fate, Thou sittest at the Western Gate; Upon thy heights so lately won Still slant the banners of the sun. . . . I know thy cunning and thy greed, Thy hard, high lust and willful deed. "

The adventurers of all lands and races who flocked to the Pacificcoast, found there a motley state of society between civilization andsavagery. There were the relics of the old Mexican occupation, theSpanish missions, with their Christianized Indians; the wild tribes ofthe plains--Apaches, Utes, and Navajoes; the Chinese coolies andwashermen, all elements strange to the Atlantic sea-board and theStates of the interior. The gold-hunters crossed, in stages orcaravans, enormous prairies, alkaline deserts dotted with sage-brushand seamed by deep canons, and passes through gigantic mountain ranges. On the coast itself nature was unfamiliar: the climate was subtropical;fruits and vegetables grew to a mammoth size, corresponding to theenormous redwoods in the Mariposa groves and the prodigious scale ofthe scenery in the valley of the Yosemite and the snow-capped peaks ofthe sierras. At first there were few women, and the men led a wild, lawless existence in the mining camps. Hard upon the heels of theprospector followed the dram-shop, the gambling-hell, and thedance-hall. Every man carried his "Colt, " and looked out for his ownlife and his "claim. " Crime went unpunished or was taken in hand, whenit got too rampant, by vigilance committees. In the diggings shaggyfrontiersmen and "pikes" from Missouri mingled with the scum of easterncities and with broken-down business men and young college graduatesseeking their fortune. Surveyors and geologists came of necessity, speculators in mining stock and city lots set up their offices in thetown; later came a sprinkling of school-teachers and ministers. Fortunes were made in one day and lost the next at poker or loo. To-day the lucky miner who had struck a good "lead" was drinkingchampagne out of pails and treating the town; to-morrow he was"busted, " and shouldered the pick for a new onslaught upon his luck. This strange, reckless life was not without fascination, and highlypicturesque and dramatic elements were present in it. It was, as BretHarte says, "an era replete with a certain heroic Greek poetry, " andsooner or later it was sure to find its poet. During the warCalifornia remained loyal to the Union, but was too far from the seatof conflict to experience any serious disturbance, and went onindependently developing its own resources and becoming daily morecivilized. By 1868 San Francisco had a literary magazine, the_Overland Monthly_, which ran until 1875, and was revived in 1883. Ithad a decided local flavor, and the vignette on its title-page was ahappily chosen emblem, representing a grizzly bear crossing a railwaytrack. In an early number of the _Overland_ was a story entitled the_Luck of Roaring Camp_, by Francis Bret Harte, a native of Albany, N. Y. (1835), who had come to California at the age of seventeen, in timeto catch the unique aspects of the life of the Forty-niners, beforetheir vagabond communities had settled down into the law-abidingsociety of the present day. His first contribution was followed byother stories and sketches of a similar kind, such as the _Outcasts ofPoker Flat_, _Miggles_, and _Tennessee's Partner_; and by verses, serious and humorous, of which last, _Plain Language from TruthfulJames_, better known as the _Heathen Chinee_, made an immediate hit, and carried its author's name into every corner of the English-speakingworld. In 1871 he published a collection of his tales, another of hispoems, and a volume of very clever parodies, _Condensed Novels_, whichrank with Thackeray's _Novels by Eminent Hands_. Bret Harte'sCalifornia stories were vivid, highly colored pictures of life in themining camps and raw towns of the Pacific coast. The pathetic and thegrotesque went hand in hand in them, and the author aimed to show howeven in the desperate characters gathered together there--thefortune-hunters, gamblers, thieves, murderers, drunkards, andprostitutes--the latent nobility of human nature asserted itself inacts of heroism, magnanimity, self-sacrifice, and touching fidelity. The same men who cheated at cards and shot each another down with tipsycurses were capable on occasion of the most romantic generosity and themost delicate chivalry. Critics were not wanting who held that, in thematter of dialect and manners and other details, the narrator was nottrue to the facts. This was a comparatively unimportant charge; but amore serious question was the doubt whether his characters wereessentially true to human nature; whether the wild soil of revenge andgreed and dissolute living ever yields such flowers of devotion asblossom in _Tennessee's Partner_ and the _Outcasts of Poker Flat_. However this may be, there is no question as to Harte's power as anarrator. His short stories are skillfully constructed and effectivelytold. They never drag, and are never overladen with description, reflection, or other lumber. 

In his poems in dialect we find the same variety of types andnationalities characteristic of the Pacific coast: the little Mexicanmaiden, Pachita, in the old mission garden; the wicked Bill Nye, whotries to cheat the Heathen Chinee at eucher and to rob Injin Dick ofhis winning lottery ticket; the geological society on the Stanislaw whosettle their scientific debates with chunks of old red sandstone andthe skulls of mammoths; the unlucky Mr. Dow, who finally strikes goldwhile digging a well, and builds a house with a "coopilow;" and Flynn, of Virginia, who saves his "pard's" life, at the sacrifice of his own, by holding up the timbers in the caving tunnel. These poems are mostlyin monologue, like Browning's dramatic lyrics, exclamatory and abruptin style, and with a good deal of indicated action, as in _Jim_, wherea miner comes into a bar-room, looking for his old chum, learns that heis dead, and is just turning away to hide his emotion when herecognizes Jim in his informant:

 "Well, thar--Good-bye-- No more, sir--I-- Eh? What's that you say?-- Why, dern it!--sho!-- No? Yea! By Jo! Sold! Sold! Why, you limb! You ornery, Derned old Long-legged Jim!"

Bret Harte had many imitators, and not only did our newspaper poetryfor a number of years abound in the properties of Californian life, such as gulches, placers, divides, etc. , but writers further eastapplied his method to other conditions. Of these by far the mostsuccessful was John Hay, a native of Indiana and private secretary toPresident Lincoln, whose _Little Breeches_, _Jim Bludso_, and _Mysteryof Gilgal_ have rivaled Bret Harte's own verses in popularity. In thelast-named piece the reader is given to feel that there is somethingrather cheerful and humorous in a bar-room fight which results in "thegals that winter, as a rule, " going "alone to singing school. " In thetwo former we have heroes of the Bret Harte type, the same combinationof superficial wickedness with inherent loyalty and tenderness. Theprofane farmer of the South-west, who "doesn't pan out on theprophets, " and who had taught his little son "to chaw terbacker, justto keep his milk-teeth white, " but who believes in God and the angelsever since the miraculous recovery of the same little son when lost onthe prairie in a blizzard; and the unsaintly and bigamistic captain ofthe _Prairie Belle_, who died like a hero, holding the nozzle of hisburning boat against the bank

 "Till the last galoot's ashore. "

The manners and dialect of other classes and sections of the countryhave received abundant illustration of late years. Edward Eggleston's_Hoosier Schoolmaster_, 1871, and his other novels are pictures ofrural life in the early days of Indiana. _Western Windows_, a volumeof poems by John James Piatt, another native of Indiana, had anunmistakable local coloring. Charles G. Leland, of Philadelphia, inhis Hans Breitmann ballads, in dialect, gave a humorous presentation ofthe German-American element in the cities. By the death, in 1881, ofSidney Lanier, a Georgian by birth, the South lost a poet of rarepromise, whose original genius was somewhat hampered by his hesitationbetween two arts of expression, music and verse, and by his effort toco-ordinate them. His _Science of English Verse_, 1880, was a mostsuggestive, though hardly convincing, statement of that theory of theirrelation which he was working out in his practice. Some of his pieces, like the _Mocking Bird_ and the _Song of the Chattahoochie_, are themost characteristically Southern poetry that has been written inAmerica. Joel Chandler Harris's _Uncle Remus_ stories, in Negrodialect, are transcripts from the folk-lore of the plantations, whilehis collection of stories, _At Teague Poteet's_, together with MissMurfree's _In the Tennessee Mountains_ and her other books, have madethe Northern public familiar with the wild life of the "moonshiners, "who distill illicit whiskey in the mountains of Georgia, NorthCarolina, and Tennessee. These tales are not only exciting inincident, but strong and fresh in their delineations of character. Their descriptions of mountain scenery are also impressive, though, inthe case of the last-named writer, frequently too prolonged. George W. Cable's sketches of French Creole life in New Orleans attractedattention by their freshness and quaintness when published, in themagazines and re-issued in book form as _Old Creole Days_, in 1879. His first regular novel, the _Grandissimes_, 1880, was likewise a storyof Creole life. It had the same winning qualities as his short storiesand sketches, but was an advance upon them in dramatic force, especially in the intensely tragic and powerfully told episode of "BrasCoupé. " Mr. Cable has continued his studies of Louisiana types andways in his later books, but the _Grandissimes_ still remains hismasterpiece. All in all, he is, thus far, the most important literaryfigure of the New South, and the justness and delicacy of hisrepresentations of life speak volumes for the sobering and refiningagency of the civil war in the States whose "cause" was "lost, " butwhose true interests gained even more by the loss than did theinterests of the victorious North. 

The four writers last mentioned, have all come to the front within thepast eight or ten years, and, in accordance with the plan of thissketch, receive here a mere passing notice. It remains to close ourreview of the literary history of the period since the war with asomewhat more extended account of the two favorite novelists whose workhas done more than any thing else to shape the movement of recentfiction. These are Henry James, Jr. , and William Dean Howells. Theirwritings, though dissimilar in some respects, are alike in this, thatthey are analytic in method and realistic in spirit. Cooper was aromancer pure and simple; he wrote the romance of adventure and ofexternal incident. Hawthorne went much deeper, and with a finerspiritual insight dealt with the real passions of the heart; and withmen's inner experiences. This he did with truth and power; but, although himself a keen observer of whatever passed before his eyes, hewas not careful to secure a photographic fidelity to the surface factsof speech, dress, manners, etc. Thus the talk of his characters isbook-talk, and not the actual language of the parlor or the street, with its slang, its colloquial ease and the intonations and shadings ofphrase and pronunciation which mark different sections of the countryand different grades of society. His attempts at dialect, for example, were of the slenderest kind. His art is ideal, and his romancescertainly do not rank as novels of real life. But with the growth of aricher and more complicated society in America fiction has grown moresocial and more minute in its observation. It would not be fair toclassify the novels of James and Howells as the fiction of mannersmerely; they are also the fiction of character, but they aim todescribe people not only as they are, in their inmost natures, but alsoas they look and talk and dress. They try to express character throughmanners, which is the way in which it is most often expressed in thedaily existence of a conventional society. It is a principle ofrealism not to select exceptional persons or occurrences, but to takeaverage men and women and their average experiences. The realistsprotest that the moving incident is not their trade, and that thestories have all been told. They want no plot and no hero. They willtell no rounded tale with a _denouement_, in which all the parts aredistributed, as in the fifth act of an old-fashioned comedy; but theywill take a transcript from life and end when they get through, withoutinforming the reader what becomes of the characters. And they will tryto interest this reader in "poor real life" with its "foolish face. "Their acknowledged masters are Balzac, George Eliot, Turgénieff, andAnthony Trollope, and they regard novels as studies in sociology, honest reports of the writers' impressions, which may not be without acertain scientific value even. 

Mr. James's peculiar province is the international novel, a field whichhe created for himself, but which he has occupied in company withHowells, Mrs. Burnett, and many others. The novelist received most ofhis schooling in Europe, and has lived much abroad, with the resultthat he has become half denationalized and has engrafted a cosmopolitanindifference upon his Yankee inheritance. This, indeed, hasconstituted his opportunity. A close observer and a conscientiousstudent of the literary art, he has added to his intellectual equipmentthe advantage of a curious doubleness in his point of view. He looksat America with the eyes of a foreigner and at Europe with the eyes ofan American. He has so far thrown himself out of relation withAmerican life that he describes a Boston horse-car or a New York hoteltable with a sort of amused wonder. His starting-point was incriticism, and he has always maintained the critical attitude. He tookup story-writing in order to help himself, by practical experiment, inhis chosen art of literary criticism, and his volume on _French Poetsand Novelists_, 1878, is by no means the least valuable of his books. His short stories in the magazines were collected into a volume in1875, with the title, _A Passionate Pilgrim, and Other Stories_. Oneor two of these, as the _Last of the Valerii_ and the _Madonna of theFuture_, suggest Hawthorne, a very unsympathetic study of whom Jamesafterward contributed to the "English Men of Letters" series. But inthe name-story of the collection he was already in the line of hisfuture development. This is the story of a middle-aged invalidAmerican who comes to England in search of health, and finds, too late, in the mellow atmosphere of the mother-country, the repose and thecongenial surroundings which he has all his life been longing for inhis raw America. The pathos of his self-analysis and his confession offailure is subtly imagined. The impressions which he and his far-awayEnglish kinsfolk make on one another, their mutual attraction andrepulsion, are described with that delicate perception of nationaldifferences which makes the humor and sometimes the tragedy of James'slater books, like _The American_, _Daisy Miller_, _The Europeans_, and_An International Episode_. His first novel was _Roderick Hudson_, 1876, not the most characteristic of his fictions, but perhaps the mostpowerful in its grasp of elementary passion. The analytic method andthe critical attitude have their dangers in imaginative literature. Inproportion as this writer's faculty of minute observation and hisrealistic objectivity have increased upon him, the uncomfortablecoldness which is felt in his youthful work has become actuallydisagreeable, and his art--growing constantly finer and surer inmatters of detail--has seemed to dwell more and more in the region ofmere manners and less in the higher realm of character and passion. Inmost of his writings the heart, somehow, is left out. We have seenthat Irving, from his knowledge of England and America, and his longresidence in both countries, became the mediator between the two greatbranches of the Anglo-Saxon race. This he did by the power of hissympathy with each. Henry James has likewise interpreted the twonations to one another in a subtler but less genial fashion thanIrving, and not through sympathy, but through contrast, by bringinginto relief the opposing ideals of life and society which havedeveloped under different institutions. In his novel, _The American_, 1877, he has shown the actual misery which may result from the clashingof opposed social systems. In such clever sketches as _Daisy Miller_, 1879, the _Pension Beaurepas_, and _A Bundle of Letters_, he hasexhibited types of the American girl, the American business man, theaesthetic feebling from Boston, and the Europeanized or would-bedenationalized American campaigners in the Old World, and has set forththe ludicrous incongruities, perplexities, and misunderstandings whichresult from contradictory standards of conventional morality andbehavior. In _The Europeans_, 1879, and _An International Episode_, 1878, he has reversed the process, bringing Old World standards to thetest of American ideas by transferring his _dramatis personae_ torepublican soil. The last-named of these illustrates how slender aplot realism requires for its purposes. It is nothing more than thehistory of an English girl of good family who marries an Americangentleman and undertakes to live in America, but finds herself souncomfortable in strange social conditions that she returns to Englandfor life, while, contrariwise, the heroine's sister is so taken withthe freedom of these very conditions that she elopes with anotherAmerican and "goes West. " James is a keen observer of the physiognomyof cities as well as of men, and his _Portraits of Places_, 1884, isamong the most delightful contributions to the literature of foreigntravel. 

Mr. Howells's writings are not without "international" touches. In _AForegone Conclusion_ and the _Lady of the Aroostook_, and others of hisnovels, the contrasted points of view in American and European life areintroduced, and especially those variations in feeling, custom, dialect, etc. , which make the modern Englishman and the modern Americansuch objects of curiosity to each other, and which have been dwelt uponof late even unto satiety. But in general he finds his subjects athome, and if he does not know his own countrymen and countrywomen moreintimately than Mr. James, at least he loves them better. There is awarmer sentiment in his fictions, too; his men are better fellows andhis women are more lovable. Howells was born in Ohio. His early lifewas that of a western country editor. In 1860 he published, jointlywith his friend Piatt, a book of verse--_Poems of Two Friends_. In1861 he was sent as consul to Venice, and the literary results of hissojourn there appeared in his sketches, _Venetian Life_, 1865, and_Italian Journeys_, 1867. In 1871 he became editor of the _AtlanticMonthly_, and in the same year published his _Suburban Sketches_. Allof these early volumes showed a quick eye for the picturesque, anunusual power of description, and humor of the most delicate quality;but as yet there was little approach to narrative. _Their WeddingJourney_ was a revelation to the public of the interest that may lie inan ordinary bridal trip across the State of New York, when a close andsympathetic observation is brought to bear upon the characteristics ofAmerican life as it appears at railway stations and hotels, onsteam-boats and in the streets of very commonplace towns. _A ChanceAcquaintance_, 1873, was Howells's first novel, though even yet thestory was set against a background of travel-pictures. A holiday tripon the St. Lawrence and the Saguenay, with descriptions of Quebec andthe Falls of Montmorenci, etc. , rather predominated over the narrative. Thus, gradually and by a natural process, complete characters andrealistic novels, such as _A Modern Instance_, 1882, and _IndianSummer_, evolved themselves from truthful sketches of places andpersons seen by the way. 

The incompatibility existing between European and American views oflife, which makes the comedy or the tragedy of Henry James'sinternational fictions, is replaced in Howells's novels by therepulsion between differing social grades in the same country. Theadjustment of these subtle distinctions forms a part of the problem oflife in all complicated societies. Thus in _A Chance Acquaintance_ theheroine is a bright and pretty Western girl, who becomes engaged duringa pleasure tour to an irreproachable but offensively priggish younggentleman from Boston, and the engagement is broken by her inconsequence of an unintended slight--the betrayal on the hero's part ofa shade of mortification when he and his betrothed are suddenly broughtinto the presence of some fashionable ladies belonging to his own_monde_. The little comedy, _Out of the Question_, deals with thissame adjustment of social scales; and in many of Howells's othernovels, such as _Silas Lapham_ and the _Lady of the Aroustook_, one ofthe main motives may be described to be the contact of the man who eatswith his fork with the man who eats with his knife, and the shockthereby ensuing. In _Indian Summer_ the complications arise from thedifference in age between the hero and heroine, and not from adifference in station or social antecedents. In all of these fictionsthe misunderstandings come from an incompatibility of manners ratherthan of character, and, if any thing were to be objected to theprobability of the story, it is that the climax hinges on delicaciesand subtleties which, in real life, when there is opportunity forexplanations, are readily brushed aside. But in _A Modern Instance_Howells touched the deeper springs of action. In this, his strongestwork, the catastrophe is brought about, as in George Eliot's greatnovels, by the reaction of characters upon one another, and the storyis realistic in a higher sense than any mere study of manners can be. His nearest approach to romance is in _The Undiscovered Country_, 1880, which deals with the Spiritualists and the Shakers, and in its study ofproblems that hover on the borders of the supernatural, in itsout-of-the-way personages and adventures, and in a certain ideal poeticflavor about the whole book, has a strong resemblance to Hawthorne, especially to Hawthorne in the _Blithedale Romance_, where he comescloser to common ground with other romancers. It is interesting tocompare the _Undiscovered Country_ with Henry James's _Bostonians_, thelatest and one of the cleverest of his fictions, which is likewise astudy of the clairvoyants, mediums, woman's rights advocates, and allvarieties of cranks, reformers, and patrons of "causes, " for whomBoston has long been notorious. A most unlovely race of people theybecome under the cold scrutiny of Mr. James's cosmopolitan eyes, whichsee more clearly the charlatanism, narrow-mindedness, mistakenfanaticism, morbid self-consciousness, disagreeable nervous intensity, and vulgar or ridiculous outside peculiarities of the humanitarians, than the nobility and moral enthusiasm which underlie the surface. 

Howells is almost the only successful American dramatist, and this inthe field of parlor comedy. His little farces, the _Elevator_, the_Register_, the _Parlor-Car_, etc. , have a lightness and grace, with anexquisitely absurd situation, which remind us more of the _Comedies etProverbes_ of Alfred de Musset, or the many agreeable dialogues andmonologues of the French domestic stage, than of any work of English orAmerican hands. His softly ironical yet affectionate treatment offeminine ways is especially admirable. In his numerous types ofsweetly illogical, inconsistent, and inconsequent womanhood he hasperpetuated with a nicer art than Dickens what Thackeray calls "thatgreat discovery, " Mrs. Nickleby. 

1. Theodore Winthrop. _Life in the Open Air_. _Cecil Dreeme_. 

2. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. _Life in a Black Regiment_. 

3. _Poetry of the Civil War_. Edited by Richard Grant White. NewYork. 1866. 

4. Charles Farrar Browne. _Artemus Ward--His Book_. _Lecture on theMormons_. _Artemus Ward in London_. 

5. Samuel Langhorne Clemens. _The Jumping Frog_. _Roughing It_. _TheMississippi Pilot_. 

6. Charles Godfrey Leland. _Hans Breitmann's Ballads_. 

7. Edward Everett Hale. _If, Yes, and Perhaps_. _His Level Best, andOther Stories_. 

8. Francis Bret Harte. _Outcasts of Poker Flat, and Other Stories_. _Condensed Novels_. _Poems in Dialect_. 

9. Sidney Lanier. _Nirvana_. _Resurrection_. _The Harlequin ofDreams_. _Song of the Chattahoochie_. _The Mocking Bird_. _TheStirrup-Cup_. _Tampa Robins_. _The Bee_. _The Revenge of Hamish_. _The Ship of Earth_. _The Marshes of Glynn_. _Sunrise_. 

10. Henry James, Jr. _A Passionate Pilgrim_. _Roderick Hudson_. _Daisy Miller_. _Pension Beaurepas_. _A Bundle of Letters_. _AnInternational Episode_. _The Bostonians_. _Portraits of Places_. 

11. William Dean Howells. _Their Wedding Journey_. _SuburbanSketches_. _A Chance Acquaintance_. _A Foregone Conclusion_. _TheUndiscovered Country_. _A Modern Instance_. 

12. George W. Cable. _Old Creole Days_. _Madame Delphine_. _TheGrandissimes_. 

13. Joel Chandler Harris. _Uncle Remus_. _Mingo, and Other Sketches_. 

14. Charles Egbert Craddook (Miss Murfree). _In the TennesseeMountains_. 

APPENDIX. 

COTTON MATHER. 

CAPTAIN PHIPS AND THE SPANISH WRECK. 

[From _Magnalia Christi Americana_. ]

Captain Phips, arriving with a ship and a tender at Port de la Plata, made a stout canoe of a stately cotton-tree, so large as to carry eightor ten oars, for the making of which periaga (as they call it) he did, with the same industry that he did every thing else, employ his ownhand and adze, and endure no little hardship, lying abroad in the woodsmany nights together. This periaga with the tender, being anchored ata place convenient, the periaga kept busking to and again, [1] but couldonly discover a reef of rising shoals thereabouts, called "TheBoilers, " which, rising to be within two or three feet of the surfaceof the sea, were yet so steep that a ship striking on them wouldimmediately sink down, who could say how many fathom, into the ocean. Here they could get no other pay for their long peeping among theBoilers, but only such as caused them to think upon returning to theircaptain with the bad news of their total disappointment. Nevertheless, as they were upon their return, one of the men, looking over the sideof the periaga into the calm water, he spied a sea-feather growing, ashe judged, out of a rock; whereupon he bade one of their Indians todive and fetch this feather, that they might, however, carry homesomething with them, and make at least as fair a triumph asCaligula's. [2] The diver, bringing up the feather, brought therewithala surprising story, that he perceived a number of great guns in thewatery world where he had found his feather; the report[3] of whichgreat guns exceedingly astonished the whole company, and at once turnedtheir despondencies for their ill success into assurances that they hadnow lit upon the true spot of ground which they had been looking for;and they were further confirmed in these assurances when, upon furtherdiving, the Indian fetched up a sow, as they styled it, or a lump ofsilver worth perhaps two or three hundred pounds. Upon this theyprudently buoyed the place that they might readily find it again; andthey went back unto their captain, whom for some while they distressedwith nothing but such bad news as they formerly thought they must havecarried him. Nevertheless, they so slipped in the sow of silver on oneside under the table, where they wore now sitting with the captain, andhearing him express his resolutions to wait still patiently upon theprovidence of God under these disappointments, that when he should lookon one side he might see that odd thing before him. At last he saw it. Seeing it he cried out with some agony, "Why! what is this? Whencecomes this?" And then, with changed countenances, they told him howand where they got it. "Then, " said he, "thanks be to God! We aremade, " and so away they went all hands to work; wherein they had thisone further piece of remarkable prosperity, that whereas if they hadfirst fallen upon that part of the Spanish wreck where the pieces ofeight[4] had been stowed in bags among the ballast they had seen a morelaborious and less enriching time of it; now, most happily, they firstfell upon that room in the wreck where the bullion had been stored up;and they so prospered in this new fishery that in a little while theyhad, without the loss of any man's life, brought up thirty-two tuns ofsilver; for it was now come to measuring of silver by tuns. Besideswhich, one Adderly, of Providence, who had formerly been very helpfulto Captain Phips in the search of this wreck, did, upon formeragreement, meet him now with a little vessel here; and he with his fewhands, took up about six tuns of silver; whereof, nevertheless, he madeso little use that in a year or two he died at Bermudas, and, as I haveheard, he ran distracted some while before he died. 

Thus did there once again come into the light of the sun a treasurewhich had been half an hundred years groaning under the waters; and inthis time there was grown upon the plate a crust-like limestone, to thethickness of several inches; which crust being broken open by ironcontrived for that purpose, they knocked out whole bushels of rustypieces of eight; which were grown thereinto. Besides that incredibletreasure of plate in various forms thus fetched up from seven or eightfathom under water, there were vast riches of gold, and pearls, andjewels, which they also lit upon; and, indeed, for a more comprehensiveinvoice, I must but summarily say, "All that a Spanish frigate uses tobe enriched withal. "

[1] Passing to and fro. 

[2] The Roman emperor who invaded Britain unsuccessfully and made hislegionaries gather sea-shells to bring back with them as evidences ofvictory. 

[3] One of Mather's puns. 

[4] Spanish piasters, formerly divided into eight reals. Thepiaster=an American dollar. 

JONATHAN EDWARDS. 

THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 

[From the author's Personal Narrative. ]

Holiness, as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it, appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calmnature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, and ravishment to the soul. In other words, that it madethe soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasantflowers; enjoying a sweet calm and the gently vivifying beams of thesun. The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations, appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of theyear; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive thepleasant beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing, as it were, in a calmrapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully andlovingly in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manneropening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun. There was nopart of creature-holiness that I had so great a sense of its lovelinessas humility, brokenness of heart, and poverty of spirit; and there wasnothing that I so earnestly longed for. My heart panted after this--tolie low before God, as in the dust; that I might be nothing, and thatGod might be all; that I might become as a little child. 

THE WRATH OF GOD. 

[From _Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God_. ]

Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, andthere are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they willnot bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows ofdeath fly unseen at noonday; the sharpest sight cannot discern them. God has so many different, unsearchable ways of taking wicked men outof the world and sending them to hell that there is nothing to make itappear that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go outof the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man atany moment. . . . Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as leadand to tend downward with great weight and pressure toward hell; and, if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftlydescend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthyconstitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, andall your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you andkeep you out of hell than a spider's web would have to stop a fallingrock. . . . There are the black clouds of God's wrath now hangingdirectly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm and big withthunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God it wouldimmediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, forthe present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be likethe chaff of the summer threshing-floor. The wrath of God is likegreat waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more andmore, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and thelonger the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its coursewhen once it is let loose. . . . 

Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if youcontinue in it; the infinite might and majesty and terribleness of theomnipotent God shall be magnified upon you in the ineffable strength ofyour torments; you shall be tormented in the presence of the holyangels and in the presence of the Lamb; and, when you shall be in thisstate of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forthand look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath andfierceness of the Almighty is; and when they have seen it they willfall down and adore that great power and majesty. "And it shall cometo pass, that from one moon to another, and from one Sabbath toanother, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men thathave transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neithershall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto allflesh. "

It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer thisfierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment: but you must suffer itto all eternity; there will be no end to this exquisite, horriblemisery; when you look forward you shall see along forever, a boundlessduration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts and amaze yoursoul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all; you will know certainly thatyou must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestlingand conflicting with this Almighty merciless vengeance; and then, whenyou have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you inthis manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. Sothat your punishment will indeed be infinite. . . . If we knew thatthere was one person, and but one, in the whole congregation, that wasto be the subject of this misery, what an awful thing it would be tothink of! If we knew who it was, what an awful sight would it be tosee such a person! How might all the rest of the congregation lift upa lamentable and bitter cry over him! But alas! Instead of one, howmany is it likely will remember this discourse in hell! And it wouldbe a wonder if some that are now present should not be in hell in avery short time, before this year is out. And it would be no wonder ifsome persons, that now sit here in some seats of this meeting-house inhealth, and quiet, and secure, should be there before to-morrow morning. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

FRANKLIN'S ARRIVAL AT PHILADELPHIA. 

[From _The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Written by Himself_. ]

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 shirtsand stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I wasfatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I was very hungry;and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about ashilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for mypassage, who at first refused it, on account of my rowing; but Iinsisted on their taking it, a man being sometimes more generous whenhe has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fearof being thought to have but little. 

Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the market-house Imet a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiringwhere 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 inBoston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then Iasked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, notconsidering or knowing the difference of money, and the greatercheapness, nor the names of his bread, I had him give me three-pennyworth 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 mypockets, 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 thedoor of Mr. Read, my future wife's father, when she, standing at thedoor, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street andpart 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, towhich I went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled withone of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that camedown 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 hadmany clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. Ijoined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of theQuakers near the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking'round a while and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy throughlabor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, andcontinued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough torouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia. 

Walking down again toward the river, and looking in the faces of thepeople, I met a young Quaker man whose countenance I liked, and, accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger could getlodging. We were near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here, " sayshe, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputablehouse; if thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better. " He broughtme to the Crooked Billet in Water Street. Here I got a dinner. 

PAYING TOO DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE. 

[From Correspondence with Madame Britton. ]

I am charmed with your description of Paradise, and with your plan ofliving there; and I approve much of your conclusion, that, in themeantime, we should draw all the good we can from this world. In myopinion we might all draw more good from it than we do, and suffer lessevil, if we would take care not to give too much for _whistles_, for tome it seems that most of the unhappy people we meet with are become soby neglect of that caution. 

You ask what I mean? You love stories, and will excuse my telling oneof myself. 

When I was a child of seven years old my friends, on a holiday, filledmy pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toysfor children, and, being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_, that Imet by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered andgave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling allover the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all thefamily. My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargainI had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it wasworth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with therest of the money, and laughed at me so much for my folly that I criedwith vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the_whistle_ gave me pleasure. 

This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression continuing onmy mind, so that often when I was tempted to buy some unnecessarything, I said to myself, _Don't give too much for the whistle_; and Isaved my money. 

As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, Ithought I met with many, very many, who _gave too much for the whistle_. 

When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time inattendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhapshis friends to attain it, I have said to myself, _This man gives toomuch for his whistle_. 

When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself inpolitical bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by thatneglect, _He pays, indeed_, said I, _too much for his whistle_. . . . 

If I see one fond of appearance or fine clothes, fine houses, finefurniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which hecontracts debts and ends his career in a prison, _Alas_! say I, _he haspaid dear, very dear for his whistle_. . . . 

In short, I conceive that a great part of the miseries of mankind arebrought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value ofthings and by their _giving too much for their whistles_. 

Yet I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I considerthat with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certainthings in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale byauction I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, andfind that I had once more given too much for the _whistle_. 

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 dressed, Bespeak the nature of the soul, Activity that knows 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 finer essence gone. 

 Thou, stranger that shalt come this way. No fraud upon the dead commit-- 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 Sheba 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. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

THE UNION. 

[From the _Reply to Hayne_, January 25, 1830. ]

I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in viewthe prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation ofour Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home andour consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we arechiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. ThatUnion we readied only by the discipline of our virtues in the severeschool of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities ofdisordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under itsbenign influences these great interests immediately awoke as from thedead and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its durationhas teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; andalthough our territory has stretched out wider and wider and ourpopulation spread farther and farther, they have not outrun itsprotection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountainof national, social, and personal happiness. 

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union to see whatmight lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighedthe chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us togethershall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over theprecipice of disunion to see whether with my short sight I can fathomthe depth of the abyss below, nor could I regard him as a safecounselor in the affairs of this government whose thoughts should bemainly bent on considering not how the Union may be best preserved, buthow tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should bebroken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts we 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 dayat least that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision nevermay be opened what lies beyond! When my eyes shall be turned to beholdfor the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on thebroken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on Statesdissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble andlingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, nowknown and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, itsarms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripeerased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its mottono such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor thoseother words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first; and Unionafterward;" but every-where, spread all over in characters of livinglight, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea andover the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that othersentiment dear to every true American heart--Liberty and Union, now andforever, one and inseparable!

SOUTH CAROLINA AND MASSACHUSETTS. 

[From the same. ]

When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, orelsewhere, to sneer at public merit because it happens to spring upbeyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood; when Irefuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due toAmerican talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to libertyand the country; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I seeextraordinary capacity and virtue, in any son of the South; and if, moved by local prejudices or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up hereto abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, maymy tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!

Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge inrefreshing remembrances of the past; let me remind you that, in earlytimes, no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle andfeeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God thatharmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through theRevolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration ofWashington, 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 principle; since sown. They areweeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter upon no encomium of Massachusetts; sheneeds none. There she is. Behold her and judge for yourselves. Thereis her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, issecure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill;and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling inthe great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil ofevery State from New England to Georgia, and there they will lieforever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, andwhere its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, inthe strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. Ifdiscord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambitionshall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness undersalutary and necessary restraint shall succeed in separating it fromthat Union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, inthe end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; itwill stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fallit must, amidst the profoundest monuments of its own glory, and on thevery spot of its origin. 

WASHINGTON IRVING. 

THE STORM SHIP. 

[From _Bracebridge Hall_. ]

In the golden age of the province of the New Netherlands, when underthe sway of Wouter Van Twiller, otherwise called the Doubter, thepeople of the Manhattoes were alarmed one sultry afternoon, just aboutthe time of the summer solstice, by a tremendous storm of thunder andlightning. The rain fell in such torrents as absolutely to spatter upand smoke along the ground. It seemed as if the thunder rattled androlled over the very roofs of the houses; the lightning was seen toplay about the Church of St. Nicholas, and to strive three times invain to strike its weather-cock. Garrett Van Horne's new chimney wassplit almost from top to bottom; and Boffne Mildeberger was struckspeechless from his bald-faced mare just as he was riding intotown. . . . At length the storm abated; the thunder sank into a growl, and the setting sun, breaking from under the fringed borders of theclouds, made the broad bosom of the bay to gleam like a sea of moltengold. 

The word was given from the fort that a ship was standing up thebay. . . . She was a stout, round, Dutch-built vessel, with high bowand poop, and bearing Dutch colors. The evening sun gilded herbellying canvas as she came riding over the long waving billows. Thesentinel who had given notice of her approach declared that he firstgot sight of her when she was in the center of the bay; and that shebroke suddenly on his sight, just as if she had come out of the bosomof the black thunder-clouds. . . . The ship was now repeatedly hailed, but made no reply, and, passing by the fort, stood on up the Hudson. Agun was brought to bear on her, and, with some difficulty, loaded andfired by Hans Van Pelt, the garrison not being expert in artillery. The shot seemed absolutely to pass through the ship, and to skip alongthe water on the other side; but no notice was taken of it! What wasstrange, she had all her sails set, and sailed right against wind andtide, which were both down the river. . . . Thus she kept on, away upthe river, lessening and lessening in the evening sunshine, until shefaded from sight like a little white cloud melting away in the summersky. . . . 

Messengers were dispatched to various places on the river, but theyreturned without any tidings--the ship had made no port. Day afterday, week after week elapsed, but she never returned down the Hudson. As, however, the council seemed solicitous for intelligence they had itin abundance. The captains of the sloops seldom arrived withoutbringing some report of having seen the strange ship at different partsof the river--sometimes near the Palisades, sometimes off Croton Point, and sometimes in the Highlands; but she never was reported as havingbeen seen above the Highlands. The crews of the sloops, it is true, generally differed among themselves in their accounts of theseapparitions; but that may have arisen from the uncertain situations inwhich they saw her. Sometimes it was by the flashes of thethunder-storm lighting up a pitchy night, and giving glimpses of hercareering across Tappan Zee or the wide waste of Haverstraw Bay. Atone moment she would appear close upon them, as if likely to run themdown, and would throw them into great bustle and alarm, but the nextflash would show her far off, always sailing against the wind. Sometimes, in quiet moonlight nights, she would be seen under some highbluff of the Highlands; all in deep shadow, excepting her top-sailsglittering in the moonbeams; by the time, however, that the voyagersreached the place no ship was to be seen; and when they had passed onfor some distance and looked back, behold! there she was again with hertop-sails in the moonshine! Her appearance was always just after orjust in the midst of unruly weather; and she was known among theskippers and voyagers of the Hudson by the name of "The Storm Ship. "

These reports perplexed the governor and his council more than ever;and it would be useless to repeat the conjectures and opinions utteredon the subject. Some quoted cases in point of ships seen off the coastof New England navigated by witches and goblins. Old Hans Van Pelt, who had been more than once to the Dutch Colony at the Cape of GoodHope, insisted that this must be the _Flying Dutchman_ which had solong haunted Table Bay, but being unable to make port had now soughtanother harbor. Others suggested that if it really was a supernaturalapparition, as there was every natural reason to believe, it might beHendrik Hudson and his crew of the _Half-Moon_, who, it was well known, had once run aground in the upper part of the river in seeking anorth-west passage to China. This opinion had very little weight withthe governor, but it passed current out of doors; for indeed it hadalways been reported that Hendrik Hudson and his crew haunted theKaatskill Mountains; and it appeared very reasonable to suppose thathis ship might infest the river where the enterprise was baffled, orthat it might bear the shadowy crew to their periodical revels in themountain. . . . 

People who live along the river insist that they sometimes see her insummer moonlight, and that in a deep still midnight they have heard thechant of her crew, as if heaving the lead; but sights and sounds are sodeceptive along the mountainous shores, and about the wide bays andlong reaches of this great river, that I confess I have very strongdoubts upon the subject. It is certain, nevertheless, that strangethings have been seen in these Highlands in storms, which areconsidered as connected with the old story of the ship. The captainsof the river craft talk of a little bulbous-bottomed Dutch goblin, intrunk hose and sugar-loafed hat, with a speaking-trumpet in his hand, which, they say, keeps about the Dunderberg. They declare that theyhave heard him, in stormy weather, in the midst of the turmoil, givingorders in Low Dutch for the piping up of a fresh gust of wind or therattling off of another thunder-clap; that sometimes he has been seensurrounded by a crew of little imps in broad breeches and shortdoublets, tumbling head-over-heels in the rack and mist, and playing athousand gambols in the air, or buzzing like a swarm of flies aboutAnthony's Nose; and that, at such times, the hurry-scurry of the stormwas always greatest. One time a sloop, in passing by the Dunderberg, was overtaken by a thunder-gust that came scouring round the mountain, and seemed to burst just over the vessel. Though light and wellballasted she labored dreadfully, and the water came over the gunwale. All the crew were amazed when it was discovered that there was a littlewhite sugar-loaf hat on the masthead, known at once to be the hat ofthe Herr of the Dunderberg. Nobody, however, dared to climb to themast-head and get rid of this terrible hat. The sloop continuedlaboring and rocking, as if she would have rolled her mast overboard, and seemed in continual danger either of upsetting or of running onshore. In this way she drove quite through the Highlands, until shehad passed Pollopol's Island, where, it is said, the jurisdiction ofthe Dunderberg potentate ceases. No sooner had she passed this bournthan the little hat spun up into the air like a top, whirled up all theclouds into a vortex, and hurried them back to the summit of theDunderberg, while the sloop righted herself and sailed on as quietly asif in a mill-pond. Nothing saved her from utter wreck but thefortunate circumstance of having a horse-shoe nailed against themast--a wise precaution against evil spirits, since adopted by all theDutch captains that navigate this haunted river. 

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 

THE RENDEZVOUS. 

[From _The Deerslayer_. ]

In the position in which the ark had now got, the castle was concealedfrom view by the projection of a point, as, indeed, was the northernextremity of the lake itself. A respectable mountain, forest-clad, androunded like all the rest, limited the view in that direction, stretching immediately across the whole of the fair scene, [1] with theexception of a deep bay that passed its western end, lengthening thebasin for more than a mile. The manner in which the water flowed outof the lake, beneath the leafy arches of the trees that lined the sidesof the stream, has already been mentioned, and it has also been saidthat the rock, which was a favorite place of rendezvous throughout allthat region, and where Deerslayer now expected to meet his friend, stood near this outlet and no great distance from the shore. It was alarge isolated stone that rested on the bottom of the lake, apparentlyleft there when the waters tore away the earth from around it, inforcing for themselves a passage down the river, and which had obtainedits shape from the action of the elements during the slow progress ofcenturies. The height of this rock could scarcely equal six feet, and, as has been said, its shape was not unlike that which is usually givento bee-hives or to a hay-cock. The latter, indeed, gives the bestidea, not only of its form, but of its dimensions. It stood, and stillstands, for we are writing of real scenes, within fifty feet of thebank, and in water that was only two feet in depth, though there wereseasons in which its rounded apex, if such a term can properly be used, was covered by the lake. Many of the trees stretched so far forward asalmost to blend the rock with the shore, when seen from a littledistance; and one tall pine in particular overhung it in a way to forma noble and appropriate canopy to a seat that had held many a forestchieftain, during the long succession of ages in which America and allit contained existed apart in mysterious solitude, a world by itself, equally without a familiar history and without an origin that theannals of man can catch. 

When distant some two or three hundred feet from the shore Deerslayertook in his sail, and he dropped his grapnel as soon as he found theark had drifted in a line that was directly to windward of the rock. The motion of the scow was then checked, when it was brought head towind by the action of the breeze. As soon as this was done Deerslayer"paid out line, " and suffered the vessel to "set down" upon the rock asfast as the light air would force it to leeward. Floating entirely onthe surface, this was soon affected, and the young man checked thedrift when he was told that the stern of the scow was within fifteen oreighteen feet of the desired spot. 

In executing this maneuver, Deerslayer had proceeded promptly; forwhile he did not in the least doubt that he was both watched andfollowed by the foe, he believed he had distracted their movements bythe apparent uncertainly of his own, and he knew they could have nomeans of ascertaining that the rock was his aim, unless, indeed, one ofthe prisoners had betrayed him--a chance so improbable in itself as togive him no concern. Notwithstanding the celerity and decision of hismovements, he did not, however, venture so near the shore withouttaking due precautions to effect a retreat, in the event of itsbecoming necessary. He held the line in his hand, and Judith wasstationed at a loop on the side of the cabin next the shore, where shecould watch the beach and the rocks and give timely notice of theapproach of either friend or foe. Hetty was also placed on watch, butit was to keep the trees overhead in view, lest some enemy might ascendone, and, by completely commanding the interior of the scow, render thedefenses of the hut or cabin useless. 

The sun had disappeared from the lake and valley when Deerslayerchecked the ark in the manner mentioned. Still it wanted a few minutesto the true sunset, and he knew Indian punctuality too well toanticipate any unmanly haste in his friend. The great question was, whether, surrounded by enemies as he was known to be, he had escapedtheir toils. The occurrences of the last twenty-four hours must be asecret to him, and, like himself, Chingachgook was yet young on awar-path. It was true he came prepared to encounter the party thatwithheld his promised bride, but he had no means of ascertaining theextent of the danger he ran or the precise positions occupied by eitherfriends or foes. In a word, the trained sagacity and untiring cautionof an Indian were all he had to rely on amid the critical risks heunavoidably ran. 

"Is the rock empty, Judith?" inquired Deerslayer, as soon as he hadchecked the drift of the ark, deeming it imprudent to ventureunnecessarily near. "Is any thing to be seen of the Delaware chief?"

"Nothing, Deerslayer. Neither rock, shore, tree, nor lake seems tohave ever held a human form. "

"Keep close, Judith--keep close, Hetty--a rifle has a prying eye, animble foot, and a desperate fatal tongue. Keep close, then, but keepup act_y_ve looks, and be on the alart. 'Twould grieve me to the heartdid any harm befall either of you. "

"And _you_, Deerslayer!" exclaimed Judith, turning her handsome facefrom the loop, to bestow a gracious and grateful look on the young man;"do _you_ 'keep close' and have a proper care that the savages do notcatch a glimpse of you! A bullet might be as fatal to you as to one ofus, and the blow that you felt would be felt by all. "

"No fear of me, Judith--no fear of me, my good gal. Do not lookthis-a-way, although you look so pleasant and comely, but keep youreyes on the rock and the shore and the--"

Deerslayer was interrupted by a slight exclamation from the girl, who, in obedience to his hurried gestures, as much as in obedience to hiswords, had immediately bent her looks again in the opposite direction. 

"What is't?--what is't, Judith?" he hastily demanded. "Is any thing tobe seen?"

"There is a man on the rock!--an Indian warrior in his paint, andarmed!"

"Where does he wear his hawk's feather?" eagerly added Deerslayer, relaxing his hold of the line, in readiness to drift nearer to theplace of rendezvous. "Is it fast to the warlock, or does he carry itabove the left ear?"

"'Tis as you say, above the left ear; he smiles, too, and mutters theword 'Mohican. '"

"God be praised, 'tis the Sarpent at last!" exclaimed the young man, suffering the line to slip through his hands until, hearing a lightbound in the other end of the craft, he instantly checked the rope andbegan to haul it in again under the assurance that his object waseffected. 

At that moment the door of the cabin was opened hastily, and a warriordarting through the little room stood at Deerslayer's side, simplyuttering the exclamation "Hugh!" At the next instant Judith and Hettyshrieked, and the air was filled with the yell of twenty savages, whocame leaping through the branches down the bank, some actually fallingheadlong into the water in their haste. 

"Pull, Deerslayer, " cried Judith, hastily barring the door, in order toprevent an inroad by the passage through which the Delaware had justentered; "pull for life and death--the lake is full of savages wadingafter us!"

The young men--for Chingachgook immediately came to his friend'sassistance--needed no second bidding, but they applied themselves totheir task in a way that showed how urgent they deemed the occasion. The great difficulty was in suddenly overcoming the _vis inertiae_ ofso large a mass; for, once in motion, it was easy to cause the scow toskim the water with all the necessary speed. 

"Pull, Deerslayer, for heaven's sake!" cried Judith, again at the loop. "These wretches rush into the water like hounds following their prey!Ah! The scow moves! and now the water deepens to the armpits of theforemost; still they rush forward and will seize the ark!"

A slight scream and then a joyous laugh followed from the girl; thefirst produced by a desperate effort of their pursuers, and the last byits failure, the scow, which had now got fairly in motion, glidingahead into deep water with a velocity that set the designs of theirenemies at naught. As the two men were prevented by the position ofthe cabin from seeing what passed astern, they were compelled toinquire of the girls into the state of the chase. 

"What now, Judith?--what next? Do the Mingoes still follow, or are wequit of 'em for the present?" demanded Deerslayer when he felt the ropeyielding, as if the scow was going fast ahead, and heard the scream andthe laugh of the girl almost in the same breath. 

"They have vanished!--one, the last, is just burying himself in thebushes of the bank--there! he has disappeared in the shadows of thetrees! You have got your friend and we are all safe!"

[1] Otsego Lake. 

 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

 TO A WATERFOWL. 

 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 seen against 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. 

 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 DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. 

 The melancholy days are come, The saddest of the year, Of wailing winds and naked woods, And meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, The autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, And to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, And from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow Through all the gloomy day. 

 Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, That lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, A beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves; The gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds With the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, But the cold November rain Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, The lovely ones again. 

 The wind-flower and the violet, They perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died Amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, And the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook In autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, As falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone From upland, glade, and glen. 

 And now when comes the calm, mild day, As still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee From out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, Though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light The waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers Whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood And by the stream no more. 

 And then I think of one who in Her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up And faded by my side; In the cold, moist earth we laid her, When the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely Should have a life so brief. Yet not unmeet it was that one, Like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, Should perish with the flowers. 

 THE UNIVERSAL TOMB. 

 [From _Thanatopsis_. ]

 Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor could'st 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 sepulcher. The hills, Rock-ribb'd 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, 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 live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which 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, 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. 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

NATURE'S MINISTRY OF BEAUTY. 

[From _Nature_. ]

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do notsee the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sunilluminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and theheart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outwardsenses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained thespirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse withheaven and earth becomes part of his daily food. In the presence ofnature a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, He is my creature, and mauger all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but everyhour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour andchange corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting thatfits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the airis a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snowpuddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in mythoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed aperfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at whatperiod soever of life is always a child. In the woods is perpetualyouth. Within these plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reigns, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he shouldtire of them in a thousand years. In the woods we return to reason andfaith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life--no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standingon the bare ground--my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted intoinfinite space--all mean egotism vanishes, I become a transparenteyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Beingcirculate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of thenearest friend sounds there foreign and accidental; to be brothers, tobe acquaintances--master or servant, is then a trifle and adisturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. Inthe wilderness I find something more dear and connate than in streetsor villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distantline of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his ownnature. 

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister is thesuggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I amnot alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. Thewaving of the boughs in the storm is new to me and old. It takes me bysurprise, and yet is not unknown. . . . 

I see 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 bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimsonlight. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. Iseem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchantmentreaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. Howdoes Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me health anda day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is myAssyria; the sunset and moonrise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms offaerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and theunderstanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy anddreams. 

Not less excellent, except for our less susceptibility in theafternoon, was the charm, last evening, of a January sunset. Thewestern clouds divided and subdivided themselves into pink flakesmodulated with tints of unspeakable softness; and the air had so muchlife and sweetness that it was a pain to come within doors. What wasit that Nature would say? Was there no meaning in the live repose ofthe valley behind the mill, and which Homer or Shakespeare could notre-form for me in words? The leafless trees become spires of flame inthe sunset, with the blue east for their background, and the stars ofthe dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and stubble ruinedwith frost, contribute something to the mute music. 

IDEALISM. 

[From the same. ]

To the senses and the unrenewed understanding belongs a sort ofinstinctive belief in the absolute existence of nature. In their viewman and nature are indissolubly joined. Things are ultimates, and theynever look beyond their sphere. The presence of Reason mars thisfaith. . . . Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us. Certain mechanical changes, a small alteration in our local position, apprises us of a dualism. We are strangely affected by seeing theshore from a moving ship, from a balloon, or through the tints of anunusual sky. The least change in our point of view gives the wholeworld a pictorial air. A man who seldom rides needs only to get into acoach and traverse his own town, to turn the street into a puppet-show. The men, the women--talking, running, bartering, fighting--the earnestmechanic, the lounger, the beggar, the boys, the dogs are unrealized atonce, or at least wholly detached from all relation to the observer, and seen as apparent, not substantial, beings. What new thoughts aresuggested by seeing a face of country quite familiar, in the rapidmovement of the railway car! Nay, the most wonted objects (make a veryslight change in the point of vision) please us most. In a cameraobscura the butcher's cart and the figure of one of our own familyamuse us. So a portrait of a well-known face gratifies us. Turn theeyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, andhow agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it any time thesetwenty years!

In these cases, by mechanical means, is suggested the differencebetween the observer and the spectacle, between the man and nature. Hence arises a pleasure mixed with awe; I may say, a low degree of thesublime is felt from the fact, probably, that man is hereby apprised, that whilst the world is a spectacle, something in himself is stable. 

 THE RHODORA. [1]

 In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, 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 self-same power that brought me there brought you. 

 [1] On being asked, Whence is the flower?

 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, and leave their children free, Bid time and nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee. 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

THE HAUNTED MIND. 

What a singular moment is the first one, when you have hardly begun torecollect yourself, after starting from midnight slumber! By unclosingyour eyes so suddenly you seem to have surprised the personages of yourdream in full convocation round your bed and catch one broad glance atthem before they can flit into obscurity. Or, to vary the metaphor, you find yourself, for a single instant, wide awake in that realm ofillusions whither sleep has been the passport, and behold its ghostlyinhabitants and wondrous scenery with a perception of their strangenesssuch as you never attain while the dream is undisturbed. The distantsound of a church clock is borne faintly on the wind. You questionwith yourself, half seriously, whether it has stolen to your waking earfrom some gray tower that stood within the precincts of your dream. While yet in suspense, another clock flings its heavy clang overthe slumbering town with so full and distinct a sound, and such along murmur in the neighboring air, that you are certain it mustproceed from the steeple at the nearest corner. You count thestrokes--one--two, and there they cease, with a booming sound, like thegathering of a third stroke within the bell. 

If you could choose an hour of wakefulness out of the whole night itwould be this. Since your sober bed-time, at eleven, you have had restenough to take off the pressure of yesterday's fatigue; while beforeyou till the sun comes from "far Cathay" to brighten your window thereis almost the space of a summer night; one hour to be spent in thought, with the mind's eye half shut, and two in pleasant dreams, and two inthat strangest of enjoyments, the forgetfulness alike of joy and woe. The moment of rising belongs to another period of time, and appears sodistant that the plunge out of a warm bed into the frosty air cannotyet be anticipated with dismay. Yesterday has already vanished amongthe shadows of the past; to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future. You have found an intermediate space, where the business of life doesnot intrude, where the passing moment lingers and becomes truly thepresent; a spot where Father Time, when he thinks nobody is watchinghim, sits down by the way-side to take breath, O that he would fallasleep and let mortals live on without growing older!

Hitherto you have lain perfectly still, because the slightest motionwould dissipate the fragments of your slumber. Now, being irrevocablyawake, you peep through the half-drawn window-curtain and observe thatthe glass is ornamented with fanciful devices in frost-work, and thateach pane presents something like a frozen dream. There will be timeenough to trace out the analogy while waiting the summons to breakfast. Seen through the clear portion of the glass, where the silvery mountainpeaks of the frost scenery do not ascend, the most conspicuous objectis the steeple, the white spire of which directs you to the wintryluster of the firmament. You may almost distinguish the figures on theclock that has just tolled the hour. Such a frosty sky, and thesnow-covered roofs, and the long vista of the frozen street, all white, and the distant water hardened into rock, might make you shiver, evenunder four blankets and a woolen comforter. Yet look at that oneglorious star! Its beams are distinguishable from all the rest, andactually cast the shadow of the casement on the bed with a radiance ofdeeper hue than moonlight, though not so accurate an outline. 

You sink down and muffle your head in the clothes, shivering all thewhile, but less from bodily chill than the bare idea of a polaratmosphere. It is too cold even for the thoughts to venture abroad. You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy ofinaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth, suchas you now feel again. Ah! that idea has brought a hideous one in itstrain. You think how the dead are lying in their cold shrouds andnarrow coffins through the drear winter of the grave, and cannotpersuade your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver when the snowis drifting over their little hillocks and the bitter blast howlsagainst the door of the tomb. That gloomy thought will collect agloomy multitude and throw its complexion over your wakeful hour. 

In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though thelights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget theirexistence, and the buried ones or prisoners whom they hide. Butsometimes, and oftenest at midnight, these dark receptacles are flungwide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passivesensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas without the power of selecting orcontrolling them, then pray that your griefs may slumber and thebrotherhood of remorse not break their chain. It is too late! Afuneral train comes gliding by your bed, in which Passion and Feelingassume bodily shape and things of the mind become dim specters to theeye. There is your earliest Sorrow, a pale young mourner, wearing asister's likeness to first love, sadly beautiful, with a hallowedsweetness in her melancholy features and grace in the flow of her sablerobe. Next appears a shade of ruined loveliness, with dust among hergolden hair and her bright garments all faded and defaced, stealingfrom your glance with drooping head, as fearful of reproach; she wasyour fondest Hope, but a delusive one; so call her Disappointment now. A sterner form succeeds, with a brow of wrinkles, a look and gesture ofiron authority; there is no name for him unless it be Fatality, anemblem of the evil influence that rules your fortunes; a demon to whomyou subjected yourself by some error at the outset of life, and werebound his slave forever, by once obeying him. See! those fiendishlineaments graven on the darkness, the writhed lip of scorn, themockery of that living eye, the pointed finger, touching the sore placein your heart! Do you remember any act of enormous folly, at which youwould blush, even in the remotest cavern of the earth? Then recognizeyour Shame. 

Pass, wretched band! Well for the wakeful one if, riotously miserable, a fiercer tribe do not surround him, the devils of a guilty heart, thatholds its hell within itself. What if Remorse should assume thefeatures of an injured friend? What if the fiend should come inwoman's garments, with a pale beauty amid sin and desolation, and liedown by your side? What if he should stand at your bed's foot, in thelikeness of a corpse, with a bloody stain upon the shroud? Sufficientwithout such guilt is this nightmare of the soul; this heavy, heavysinking of the spirits; this wintry gloom about the heart; thisindistinct horror of the mind, blending itself with the darkness of thechamber. . . . Now comes the peal of the distant clock, with fainterand fainter strokes as you plunge farther into the wilderness of sleep. It is the knell of a temporary death. Your spirit has departed, andstrays like a free citizen, among the people of a shadowy world, beholding strange sights, yet without wonder or dismay. So calm, perhaps, will be the final change, so undisturbed, as if among familiarthings. The entrance of the soul to its eternal home!

 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

 THE BELEAGUERED CITY. 

 I have read, in some old marvelous tale, Some legend strange and vague, That a midnight host of specters 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. 

 But when the old cathedral bell Proclaimed the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell On the alarmèd 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 marvelous 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. 

 Down the broad Vale of Tears afar The spectral camp is fled; Faith shineth as a morning star, Our ghastly fears are dead. 

 THE OCCULTATION OF ORION. 

 I saw, as in a dream sublime, The balance in the hand of Time. O'er East and West its beam impended; And day, with all its hours of light, Was slowly sinking out of sight, While, opposite, the scale of night Silently with the stars ascended. 

 Like the astrologers of eld, In that bright vision I beheld Greater and deeper mysteries. I saw, with its celestial keys, Its chords of air, its frets of fire, The Samian's great Aeolian lyre, Rising through all its sevenfold bars, From earth unto the fixèd stars. And through the dewy atmosphere, Not only could I see, but hear, Its wondrous and harmonious strings, In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere, From Dian's circle light and near, Onward to vaster and wider rings, Where, chanting through his beard of snows, Majestic, mournful Saturn goes, And down the sunless realms of space Reverberates the thunder of his bass. 

 Beneath the sky's triumphal arch This music sounded like a march, And with its chorus seemed to be Preluding some great tragedy. Sirius was rising in the east; And, slow ascending one by one, The kindling constellations shone. Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant, Algebar, Orion, hunter of the beast! His sword hung gleaming by his side, And, on his arm, the lion's hide Scattered across the midnight air The golden radiance of its hair. 

 The moon was pallid, but not faint; And beautiful as some fair saint, Serenely moving on her way In hours of trial and dismay. As if she heard the voice of God, Unharmed with naked feet she trod Upon the hot and burning stars, As on the glowing coals and bars That were to prove her strength, and try Her holiness and her purity. 

 Thus moving on, with silent pace, And triumph in her sweet, pale face, She reached the station of Orion. Aghast he stood in strange alarm! And suddenly from his outstretched arm Down fell the red skin of the lion Into the river at his feet. His mighty club no longer beat The forehead of the bull; but he Reeled as of yore beside the sea, When, blinded by Oenopion, He sought the blacksmith at his forge, And, climbing up the mountain gorge, Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun, Then through the silence overhead, An angel with a trumpet said, "Forever more, forever more, The reign of violence is o'er. " And, like an instrument that flings Its music on another's strings, The trumpet of the angel cast Upon the heavenly lyre its blast, And on from sphere to sphere the words Re-echoed down the burning chords, -- "For evermore, for evermore, The reign of violence is o'er!"

 DANTE. 

 Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes, Stern thoughts and awful from thy thoughts arise, Like Farinata from his fiery tomb. Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom; Yet in thy heart what human sympathies. What soft compassion glows, as in the skies The tender stars their clouded lamps relume! Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks, By Fra Hilario in his diocese, As up the convent wall, in golden streaks, The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease. And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks, Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!"

 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

 RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 

 O Mother Earth! upon thy lap Thy weary ones receiving, And o'er there, silent as a dream, Thy grassy mantle weaving, Fold softly in thy long embrace That heart so worn and broken, And cool its pulse of fire beneath Thy shadows old and oaken. 

 Shut out from him the bitter word And serpent hiss of scorning; Nor let the storms of yesterday Disturb his quiet morning. Breathe over him forgetfulness Of all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids in blindness. 

 There, where with living ear and eye, He heard Potomac's flowing, And, through his tall ancestral trees Saw autumn's sunset glowing, He sleeps--still looking to the West, Beneath the dark wood shadow, As if he still would see the sun Sink down on wave and meadow. 

 Bard, Sage, and Tribune--in himself All moods of mind contrasting-- The tenderest wail of human woe, The scorn like lightning blasting; The pathos which from rival eyes Unwilling tears could summon, The stinging taunt, the fiery burst Of hatred scarcely human!

 Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower, From lips of life-long sadness; Clear picturings of majestic thought Upon a ground of madness; And over all Romance and Song A classic beauty throwing, And laureled Clio at his side Her storied pages showing. 

 All parties feared him: each in turn Beheld its schemes disjointed, As right or left his fatal glance And spectral finger pointed. Sworn foe of cant, he smote it down With trenchant wit unsparing, And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand The robe Pretense was wearing. 

 Too honest or too proud to feign A love he never cherished, Beyond Virginia's border line His patriotism perished. While others hailed in distant skies Our eagle's dusky pinion, He only saw the mountain bird Stoop o'er his Old Dominion. 

 Still through each change of fortune strange, Racked nerve, and brain all burning, His loving faith in mother-land Knew never shade of turning; By Britain's lakes, by Neva's wave, Whatever sky was o'er him, He heard her rivers' rushing sound, Her blue peaks rose before him. 

 He held his slaves, yet made withal No false and vain pretenses, Nor paid a lying priest to seek For scriptural defenses. His harshest words of proud rebuke, His bitterest taunt and scorning, Fell fire-like on the Northern brow That bent to him in fawning. 

 He held his slaves, yet kept the while His reverence for the Human, In the dark vassals of his will He saw but man and woman. No hunter of God's outraged poor His Roanoke valley entered; No trader in the souls of men Across his threshold ventured. 

 And when the old and wearied man Lay down for his last sleeping, And at his side, a slave no more, His brother-man stood weeping, His latest thought, his latest breath, To freedom's duty giving, With failing tongue and trembling hand The dying blest the living. 

 O! never bore his ancient State A truer son or braver; None trampling with a calmer scorn On foreign hate or favor. He knew her faults, yet never stooped His proud and manly feeling To poor excuses of the wrong Or meanness of concealing. 

 But none beheld with clearer eye, The plague-spot o'er her spreading, None heard more sure the steps of Doom Along her future treading. For her as for himself he spake, When, his gaunt frame up-bracing, He traced with dying hand "REMORSE!" And perished in the tracing. 

 As from the grave where Henry sleeps, From Vernon's weeping willow, And from the grassy pall which hides The Sage of Monticello, So from the leaf-strewn burial-stone Of Randolph's lowly dwelling, Virginia! o'er thy land of slaves A warning voice is swelling. 

 And hark! from thy deserted fields Are sadder warnings spoken, From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons Their household gods have broken. The curse is on thee--wolves for men, And briers for corn-sheaves giving! O! more than all thy dead renown Were now one hero living. 

 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

 OLD IRONSIDES. 

 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar; The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

 Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee, -- The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea. 

 O, better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale!

 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 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 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. "

 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; O, 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. 

 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 

 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!

 TO ONE IN PARADISE. 

 Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine: A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. 

 Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry hope! that did'st arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the future cries On! on! But o'er the past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies, Mute, motionless, aghast!

 For, alas! alas! with me The light of life is o'er. "No more--no more--no more--" (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar!

 And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams, -- In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams!

FROM "THE FALL OP THE HOUSE OF USHER. "

At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment paused;for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excitedfancy had deceived me)--it appeared to me that, from some very remoteportion of the mansion there came, indistinctly, to my ears what mighthave been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but astifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping soundwhich Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyonddoubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for amidthe rattling of the sashes of the casements, and, the ordinarycommingled noises of the still-increasing storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. Icontinued the story. 

 * * * * * * * *

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wildamazement--for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I foundit impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound, the exactcounterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon'sunnatural shriek, as described by the romancer. Oppressed, as Icertainly was, upon the occurrence of this second and mostextraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations, inwhich wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retainedsufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, thesensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain thathe had noticed the sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strangealteration had, during the last few minutes, taken place in hisdemeanor. From a position fronting my own he had gradually broughtround his chair so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber, and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I sawthat his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head haddropped upon his breast; yet I knew that he was not asleep, from thewide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it inprofile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this idea;for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniformsway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this I resumed the narrativeof Sir Launcelot. 

 * * * * * * * *

No sooner had these syllables passed my lips than--as if a shield ofbrass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor ofsilver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled, reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leapedto my feet; but the measured, rocking movement of Usher wasundisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes werebent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance therereigned a stony rigidity. But as I placed my hand upon his shoulderthere came a strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smilequivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, andgibbering manner, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closelyover him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words. 

"Not hear it? Yes, I hear it, and _have_ heard it. Long--long--long--many minutes, many hours, many days have I heardit--yet I _dared_ not--O, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!--I_dared_ not--I dared not speak! _We have put her living in the tomb_!Said I not that my senses were acute? I _now_ tell you that I heardher first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them many, many days ago--yet I dared not--I _dared not speak_! Andnow--to-night--Ethelred--ha! ha!--the breaking of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield!--say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hingesof her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of thevault! O, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she nothurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep onthe stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of herheart? Madman!"--here he sprang furiously to his feet and shrieked outhis syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up hissoul--"_Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door_!"

As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been foundthe potency of a spell, the huge antique panels to which the speakerpointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebonyjaws. It was the work of the rushing gust; but then without thosedoors there _did_ stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the LadyMadeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and theevidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciatedframe. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro uponthe threshold--then, with a low, moaning cry, fell heavily inward uponthe person of her brother, and, in her violent and now finaldeath-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse and a victim to theterrors he had anticipated. 

From that chamber and from that mansion I fled aghast. The storm wasstill abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the oldcauseway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and Iturned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued, for the vasthouse and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that; ofthe full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly throughthat once barely discernible fissure of which I have before spoken asextending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to thebase. While I gazed this fissure rapidly widened; there came a fiercebreath of the whirlwind--the entire orb of the satellite burst at onceupon my sight--my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushingasunder--there was a long, tumultuous, shouting sound like the voice ofa thousand waters--and the deep and dark tarn at my feet closedsullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher. 

 NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS. 

 UNSEEN SPIRITS. 

 The shadows lay along Broadway, 'Twas near the twilight tide-- And slowly there a lady fair Was walking in her pride. Alone walked she; but, viewlessly, Walked spirits at her side. 

 Peace charmed the street beneath her feet, And Honor charmed the air; And all astir looked kind on her, And called her good as fair-- For all God ever gave to her She kept with chary care. 

 She kept with care her beauties rare From lovers warm and true; For her heart was cold to all but gold, And the rich came not to woo, But honored well are charms to sell, If priests the selling do. 

 Now walking there was one more fair-- A slight girl, lily-pale; And she had unseen company To make the spirit quail-- 'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn, And nothing could avail. 

 No mercy now can clear her brow For this world's peace to pray; For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air, Her woman's heart gave way! But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven By man is cursed alway. 

NAHANT. 

Here we are, then, in the "Swallow's Cave. " The floor descends by agentle declivity to the sea, and from the long dark cleft stretchingoutward you look forth upon the Atlantic--the shore of Ireland thefirst _terra firma_ in the path of your eye. Here is a dark pool, leftby the retreating tide for a refrigerator; and with the champagne inthe midst we will recline about it like the soft Asiatics of whom welearned pleasure in the East, and drink to the small-featured andpurple-lipped "Mignons" of Syria--those fine-limbed and fiery slavesadorable as peris, and by turns languishing and stormy, whom you buyfor a pinch of piastres (say 5L 5s. ) in sunny Damascus. Your drowsyCircassian, faint and dreamy, or your crockery Georgian--fit dolls forthe sensual Turk--is, to him who would buy _soul_, dear at a penny thehecatomb. 

We recline, as it were, in an ebon pyramid with a hundred feet of floorand sixty of wall, and the fourth side open to the sky. The lightcomes in mellow and dim, and the sharp edges of the rocky portal seemlet into the pearly heaven. The tide is at half-ebb, and the advancingand retreating waves, which at first just lifted the fringe of crimsondulse at the lip of the cavern, now dash their spray-pearls on the rockbelow, the "tenth" surge alone rallying as if in scorn of itsretreating fellow, and, like the chieftain of Culloden Moor, rushingback singly to the contest. And now that the waters reach the entranceno more, come forward and look on the sea! The swell lifts! Would younot think the bases of the earth rising beneath it? It falls! Wouldyou not think the foundation of the deep had given way? A plain, broadenough for the navies of the world to ride at large, heaves up evenlyand steadily as if it would lie against the sky, rests a momentspell-bound in its place, and falls again as far--the respiration of asleeping child not more regular and full of slumber. It is only on theshore that it chafes. Blessed emblem! it is at peace with itself! Therocks war with a nature so unlike their own, and the hoarse din oftheir border onsets resounds through the caverns they have rent open;but beyond, in the calm bosom of the ocean, what heavenly dignity! whatgodlike unconsciousness of alarm! I did not think we should stumble onsuch a moral in the cave!

By the deeper bass of its hoarse organ the sea is now playing upon itslowest stops, and the tide is down. Hear how it rushes in beneath therocks, broken and stilled in its tortuous way, till it ends with awashing and dull hiss among the sea-weed, and, like a myriad of smalltinkling bells, the dripping from the crags is audible. There is finemusic in the sea!

And now the beach is bare. The cave begins to cool and darken, and thefirst gold tint of sunset is stealing into the sky, and the sea looksof a changing opal, green, purple, and white, as if its floor werepaved with pearl, and the changing light struck up through the waters. And there heaves a ship into the horizon like a white-winged bird, lying with dark breast on the waves, abandoned of the sea-breeze withinsight of port, and repelled even by the spicy breath that comes with awelcome off the shore. She comes from "Merry England. " She isfreighted with more than merchandise. The home-sick exile will gaze onher snowy sail as she sets in with the morning breeze, and bless it, for the wind that first filled it on its way swept through the greenvalley of his home! What links of human affection brings she over thesea? How much comes in her that is not in her "bill of lading, " yetworth to the heart that is waiting for it a thousand times the purchaseof her whole venture!

_Mais montons nous_! I hear the small hoofs of Thalaba; my stanhopewaits; we will leave this half bottle of champagne, that "remainderbiscuit, " and the echoes of our philosophy to the Naiads who have lentus their drawing-room. Undine, or Egeria! Lurly, or Arethusa!whatever thou art called, nymph of this shadowy cave! adieu!

Slowly, Thalaba! Tread gingerly down this rocky descent! So! Here weare on the floor of the vasty deep! What a glorious race-course! Thepolished and printless sand spreads away before you as far as the eyecan see, the surf comes in below breast-high ere it breaks and thewhite fringe of the sliding wave shoots up the beach, but leaves roomfor the marching of a Persian phalanx on the sands it has deserted. O, how noiselessly runs the wheel, and how dreamily we glide along, feeling our motion but in the resistance of the wind and in thetrout-like pull of the ribands by the excited animal before us. Markthe color of the sand! White at high-water mark, and thence deepeningto a silvery gray as the water has evaporated less, a slab of Egyptiangranite in the obelisk of St. Peter's not more polished andunimpressible. Shell or rock, weed or quicksand, there is none; and, mar or deface its bright surface as you will, it is ever beaten downanew, and washed even of the dust of the foot of man by the returningsea. You may write upon its fine-grained face with a crow-quill--youmay course over its dazzling expanse with a troop of chariots. 

Most wondrous and beautiful of all, within twenty yards of the surf, orfor an hour after the tide has left the sand, it holds the waterwithout losing its firmness, and is like a gay mirror, bright as thebosom of the sea. (By your leave, Thalaba!) And now lean over thedasher and see those small fetlocks striking up from beneath--theflying mane, the thoroughbred action, the small and expressive head, asperfect in the reflection as in the reality; like Wordsworth's swan, he

 "_Trots_ double, _horse_ and shadow. "

You would swear you were skimming the surface of the sea; and thedelusion is more complete as the white foam of the "tenth wave" skimsin beneath wheel and hoof, and you urge on with the treacherous elementgliding away visibly beneath you. 

HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

THE WINTER WOODS. 

[From _Excursions_. ]

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill. It finally melts the great snow, and inJanuary or July is only buried under a thicker or thinner covering. Inthe coldest day it flows somewhere, and the snow melts around everytree. This field of winter rye which sprouted late in the fall and nowspeedily dissolves the snow is where the fire is very thinly covered. We feel warmed by it. In the winter warmth stands for all virtue, andwe resort in thought to a trickling rill, with its bare stones shiningin the sun, and to warm springs in the woods, with as much eagerness asrabbits and robins. The steam which rises from swamps and pools is asdear and domestic as that of our own kettle. What fire could everequal the sunshine of a winter's day, when the meadow-mice come out bythe wall-sides, and the chickadee lisps in the defiles of the wood?The warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from theearth as in summer; and when we feel his beams on our backs as we aretreading some snowy dell we are grateful as for a special kindness, andbless the sun which has followed us into that by-place. 

This subterranean fire has its altar in each man's breast, for in thecoldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveler cherishes a warmerfire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth. Ahealthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in wintersummer is in his heart. There is the South. Thither have all birdsand insects migrated, and around the warm springs in his breast aregathered the robin and the lark. 

At length, having reached the edge of the woods and shut out thegadding town, we enter within their covert as we go under the roof of acottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow. They are glad and warm still, and as genial and cheery in winter as insummer. As we stand in the midst of the pines, in the flickering andcheckered light which straggles but little way into their maze, wewonder if the towns have ever heard their simple story. It seems to usthat no traveler has ever explored them, and notwithstanding thewonders which science is elsewhere revealing every day, who would notlike to hear their annals? Our humble villages in the plain are theircontribution. We borrow from the forest the boards which shelter andthe sticks which warm us. How important is their evergreen to thewinter, that portion of the summer which does not fade, the permanentyear, the unwithered grass. Thus simply and with little expense ofaltitude is the surface of the earth diversified. What would humanlife be without forests, those natural cities? From the tops ofmountains they appear like smooth-shaven lawns; yet whither shall wewalk but in this taller grass?

In this glade covered with bushes of a year's growth see how thesilvery dust lies on every seared leaf and twig, deposited in suchinfinite and luxurious forms as by their very variety atone for theabsence of color. Observe the tiny tracks of mice around every stem, and the triangular tracks of the rabbit. A pure elastic heaven hangsover all, as if the impurities of the summer sky, refined and shrunk bythe chaste winter's cold, had been winnowed by the heavens upon theearth. 

Mature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavensseem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved anddistinct. Water turns to ice; rain to snow. The day is but aScandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer. 

How much more living is the life that is in nature, the furred lifewhich still survives the stinging nights, and, from amidst fields andwoods covered with frost and snow, sees the sun rise!

 "The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. "

The gray squirrel and rabbit are brisk and playful in the remote glens, even on the morning of the cold Friday. Here is our Lapland andLabrador; and for our Esquimaux and Knistenaux, Dog-ribbed Indians, Novazemblaites, and Spitzbergeners, are there not the ice-cutter andwood-chopper, the fox, musk-rat, and mink?

Still, in the midst of the arctic day we may trace the summer to itsretreats and sympathize with some contemporary life. Stretched overthe brooks, in the midst of the frost-bound meadows, we may observe thesubmarine cottages of the caddice-worms, the larvae of the Plicipennes. Their small cylindrical cases built around themselves, composed offlags, sticks, grass, and withered leaves, shells and pebbles, informand color like the wrecks which strew the bottom, now drifting alongover the pebbly bottom, now whirling in tiny eddies and dashing downsteep falls, or sweeping rapidly along with the current, or elseswaying to and fro at the end of some grass-blade or root. Anon theywill leave their sunken habitations, and, crawling up the stems ofplants or to the surface like gnats, as perfect insects henceforth, flutter over the surface of the water or sacrifice their short lives inthe flame of our candle at evening. Down yonder little glen the shrubsare drooping under their burden, and the red alder-berries contrastwith the white ground. Here are the marks of a myriad feet which havealready been abroad. The sun rises as proudly over such a glen as overthe valley of the Seine or Tiber, and it seems the residence of a pureand self-subsistent valor such as they never witnessed, which neverknew defeat or fear. Here reign the simplicity and purity of aprimitive age and a health and hope far remote from towns and cities. Standing quite alone, far in the forest, while the wind is shaking downsnow from the trees, and leaving the only human tracks behind us, wefind our reflections of a richer variety than the life of cities. Thechickadee and nut-hatch are more inspiring society than statesmen andphilosophers, and we shall return to these last as to more vulgarcompanions. In this lonely glen, with the brook draining the slopes, its creased ice and crystals of all hues, where the spruces andhemlocks stand up on either side, and the rush and sere wild oats inthe rivulet itself, our lives are more serene and worthy to contemplate. 

As the day advances, the heat of the sun is reflected by thehill-sides, and we hear a faint but sweet music where flows the rillreleased from its fetters, and the icicles are melting on the trees, and the nut-hatch and partridge are heard and seen. The south windmelts the snow at noon, and the bare ground appears with its witheredgrass and leaves, and we are invigorated by the perfume which exhalesfrom it as by the scent of strong meats. 

Let us go into this deserted woodman's hut, and see how he has passedthe long winter nights and the short and stormy days. For here man haslived under this south hill-side, and it seems a civilized and publicspot. We have such associations as when the traveler stands by theruins of Palmyra or Hecatompolis. Singing birds and flowers perchancehave begun to appear here, for flowers as well as weeds follow in thefootsteps of man. These hemlocks whispered over his head, thesehickory logs were his fuel, and these pitch-pine roots kindled hisfire; yonder fuming rill in the hollow, whose thin and airy vapor stillascends as busily as ever, though he is far off now, was his well. These hemlock boughs, and the straw upon this raised platform, were hisbed, and this broken dish held his drink. But he has not been herethis season, for the phoebes built their nest upon this shelf lastsummer. I find some embers left, as if he had but just gone out, wherehe baked his pot of beans; and while at evening he smoked his pipe, whose stemless bowl lies in the ashes, chatted with his only companion, if perchance he had any, about the depth of the snow on the morrow, already falling fast and thick without, or disputed whether the lastsound was the screech of an owl or the creak of a bough, or imaginationonly; and through this broad chimney-throat, in the late winterevening, ere he stretched himself upon the straw, he looked up to learnthe progress of the storm, and, seeing the bright stars of Cassiopeia'schair shining brightly down upon him, fell contentedly asleep. 

See how many traces from which we may learn the chopper's history. From this stump we may guess the sharpness of his ax, and from theslope of the stroke, on which side he stood, and whether he cut downthe tree without going round it or changing hands; and from the flexureof the splinters, we may know which way it fell. This one chipcontains inscribed on it the whole history of the wood-chopper and ofthe world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or saltperchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in theforest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of thoselarger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High Streets and Broadways. 

 WALT WHITMAN. 

 THE MIRACLES OF NATURE. 

 [From _Leaves of Grass_. ]

 To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same. 

 * * * * * * * *

 To me the sea is a continual miracle, The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?

 * * * * * * * *

 I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited; I was thinking this globe enough, till there tumbled upon me myriads of other globes; O, how plainly I see now that this life cannot exhibit all to me--as the day cannot; O, I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death. 

 * * * * * * * *

 O Death! O, the beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons. 

 * * * * * * * *

 The earth never tires, The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first-- Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged--keep on--there are divine things, well enveloped; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell. 

 O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

 O captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! Leave you not the little spot Where on the deck my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. 

 O captain! my captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; O captain! dear father! This arm I push beneath you; It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead. 

 My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; But the ship, the ship is anchored safe, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with silent tread, Walk the spot my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. 

 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

 THE COURTIN'. 

 Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown, An' peeked in thru the winder, An' there sot Huldy all alone, 'ith no one nigh to hender. 

 Agin the chimbly crooknecks hung, An' in amongst 'em rusted The ole queen's arm thet Gran'ther Young Fetched back from Concord busted. 

 The wannut logs shot sparkles out Toward the pootiest, bless her! An' leetle fires danced all about The chiny on the dresser. 

 The very room, coz she wuz in, Looked warm from floor to ceilin', An' she looked full ez rosy agin Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'. 

 She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu, A-raspin' on the scraper; All ways to once her feelin's new Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 

 He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, Some doubtfle o' the seekle; His heart kep' goin' pitypat, But hern went pity Zekle. 

 THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED. 

 [From _Biglow Papers_. ]

 I du believe in Freedom's cause, Ez fur away as Paris is; I love to see her stick her claws In them infarnal Pharisees; It's wal enough agin a king To dror resolves an' triggers-- But libbaty's a kind o' thing Thet don't agree with niggers. 

 I du believe the people want A tax on teas an' coffees, Thet nothin' aint extravygunt, Pervidin' I'm in office; Fer I hev loved my country sence My eye-teeth filled their sockets, An' Uncle Sam I reverence-- Partic'larly his pockets. 

 I du believe in any plan O' levyin' the taxes, Ez long ez, like a lumberman, I git jest wut I axes; I go free-trade thru thick an' thin, Because it kind o' rouses The folks to vote--an' keeps us in Our quiet custom-houses. 

 * * * * * * * *

 I du believe with all my soul In the gret Press's freedom, To pint the people to the goal An' in the traces lead 'em; Palsied the arm thet forges jokes At my fat contracts squintin', An' withered be the nose that pokes Inter the gov'ment printin'!

 I du believe thet I should give Wut's his'n unto Caesar, Fer it's by him I move an' live, Frum him my bread and cheese air; I du believe thet all o' me Doth bear his souperscription, -- Will, conscience, honor, honesty, An' things o' thet description. 

 I du believe in prayer an' praise To him thet hez the grantin' O' jobs, --in every thin' that pays, But most of all in CANTIN'; This doth my cup with marcies fill, This lays all thought o' sin to rest, -- I _don't_ believe in princerple, But, O, I _du_ in interest. 

 I du believe in bein' this Or thet, ez it may happen One way or t'other hendiest is To ketch the people nappin'; It aint by princerples nor men My preudent course is steadied, -- I scent wich pays the best; an' then Go into it baldheaded. 

 I du believe thet holdin' slaves Comes nat'ral tu a Presidunt, Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves To hev a wal-broke precedunt; Fer any office, small or gret, I couldn't ax with no face, Without I'd ben, thru dry an' wet, Th' unrizzost kind o' doughface. 

 I du believe wutever trash 'll keep the people in blindness, -- Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash Right inter brotherly kindness; Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ball Air good-will's strongest magnets; Thet peace, to make it stick at all, Must be druv in with bagnets. 

 In short, I firmly du believe In Humbug generally, Fer it's a thing that I perceive To hev a solid vally; This heth my faithful shepherd ben, In pasturs sweet heth led me, An' this 'll keep the people green To feed ez they hev fed me. 

EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 

[From _The Man Without a Country_. [1]]

The rule adopted on board the ships on which I have met "the manwithout a country" was, I think, transmitted from the beginning. Nomess liked to have him permanently, because his presence cut off alltalk of home or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, ofpeace or of war--cut off more than half the talk men liked to have atsea. But it was always thought too hard that he should never meet therest of us except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one system. He was not permitted to talk with the men unless an officer was by. With officers he had unrestrained intercourse, as far as he and theychose. But he grew shy, though he had favorites; I was one. Then thecaptain always asked him to dinner on Monday. Every mess in successiontook up the invitation in its turn. According to the size of the ship, you had him at your mess more or less often at dinner. His breakfasthe ate in his own state-room--he always had a state-room--which waswhere a sentinel or somebody on the watch could see the door. Andwhatever else he ate or drank, he ate or drank alone. Sometimes, whenthe marines or sailors had any special jollification, they werepermitted to invite "Plain-Buttons, " as they called him. Then Nolanwas sent with some officer, and the men were forbidden to speak of homewhile he was there. I believe the theory was that the sight of hispunishment did them good. They called him "Plain-Buttons" because, while he always chose to wear a regulation army uniform, he was notpermitted to wear the army button, for the reason that it bore eitherthe initials or the insignia of the country he had disowned. 

I remember soon after I joined the navy I was on shore with some of theolder officers from our ship and from the _Brandywine_, which we hadmet at Alexandria. We had leave to make a party and go up to Cairo andthe Pyramids. As we jogged along (you went on donkeys then), some ofthe gentlemen (we boys called them "Dons, " but the phrase was longsince changed) fell to talking about Nolan, and some one told thesystem which was adopted from the first about his books and otherreading. As he was almost never permitted to go on shore, even thoughthe vessel lay in port for months, his time at the best hung heavy; andevery body was permitted to lend him books, if they were not publishedin America, and made no allusion to it. These were common enough inthe old days, when people in the other hemisphere talked of the UnitedStates as little as we do of Paraguay. He had almost all the foreignpapers that came into the ship, sooner or later; only somebody must goover them first, and cut out any advertisement or stray paragraph thatalluded to America. This was a little cruel sometimes, when the backof what was cut might be as innocent as Hesiod. Right in the midst ofone of Napoleon's battles, or one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolanwould find a great hole, because on the back of the page of that paperthere had been an advertisement of a packet for New York, or a scrapfrom the President's message. I say this was the first time I everheard of this plan, which afterward I had enough and more than enoughto do with. I remember it, because poor Phillips, who was of theparty, as soon as the allusion to reading was made, told a story ofsomething which happened at the Cape of Good Hope on Nolan's firstvoyage; and it is the only thing I ever knew of that voyage. They hadtouched at the Cape, and had done the civil thing with the Englishadmiral and the fleet, and then, leaving for a long cruise up theIndian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot of English books from anofficer, which, in those days, as indeed in these, was quite awindfall. Among them, as the devil would order, was the _Lay of theLast Minstrel_, which they had all of them heard of, but which most ofthem had never seen. I think it could not have been published long. Well, nobody thought there could be any risk of any thing national inthat, though Phillips swore old Shaw had cut out the "Tempest" fromShakespeare before he let Nolan have it, because he said "the Bermudasought to be ours, and, by Jove, should be one day. " So Nolan waspermitted to join the circle one afternoon when a lot of them sat ondeck smoking and reading aloud. People do not do such things so oftennow; but when I was young we got rid of a great deal of time so. Well, so it happened that in his turn Nolan took the book and read to theothers; and he read very well, as I know. Nobody in the circle knew aline of the poem, only it was all magic and border chivalry, and wasten thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily through the fifthcanto, stopped a minute and drank something, and then began without athought of what was coming:

 "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said"--

It seemed impossible to us that any body ever heard this for the firsttime; but all these fellows did then, and poor Nolan himself went on, still unconsciously or mechanically:

 "This is my own, my native land!"

Then they all saw something was to pay; but he expected to get through, I suppose, turned a little pale, but plunged on:

 "Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand?-- If such there breathe, go, mark him well. "

By this time the men were all beside themselves, wishing there was anyway to make him turn over two pages; but he had not quite presence ofmind for that; he gagged a little, colored crimson, and staggered on:

 "For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite these titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentered all in self;"--

and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, but started up, swungthe book into the sea, vanished into his state-room. "And by Jove, "said Phillips, "we did not see him for two months again. And I had tomake up some beggarly story to that English surgeon why I did notreturn his Walter Scott to him. "

[1]See page 195. 

 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 

 [From _Marco Bozzaris_. ]

 Come to the bridal-chamber, Death! Come to the mother's when she feels For the first time her first-born's breath; Come when the blessed seals That close the pestilence are broke, And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean-storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm, With banquet-song, and dance, and wine: And thou art terrible--the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier; And all we know, or dream, or fear Of agony, are thine. 

 But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word; And in its hollow tones are heard The thanks of millions yet to be. Come, when his task of fame is wrought-- Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought-- Come in her crowning hour--and then Thy sunken eye's unearthly light To him is welcome as the sight Of sky and stars to prisoned men; Thy grasp is welcome as the hand Of brother in a foreign land; Thy summons welcome as the cry That told the Indian isles were nigh To the world-seeking Genoese, When the land-wind, from woods of palm, And orange-groves, and fields of balm, Blew o'er the Haytian seas. 

 Bozzaris! with the storied brave Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee--there is no prouder grave, Even in her own proud clime. She wore no funeral weeds for thee, Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, The heartless luxury of the tomb; But she remembers thee as one Long loved, and for a season gone; For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babes' first lisping tells; For thine her evening prayer is said, At palace couch and cottage bed; Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him, the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate and checks her tears. And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried joys, And even she who gave thee birth, Will by their pilgrim-circled hearth Talk of thy doom without a sigh: For thou art Freedom's now and Fame's, One of the few, the immortal names, That were not born to die. 

 ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 

 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, 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. 

CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE. 

[From _Lecture on the Mormons_. ]

Brother Kimball is a gay and festive cuss, of some seventy summers, orsome'er's there about. He has one thousand head of cattle and ahundred head of wives. He says they are awful eaters. 

Mr. Kimball had a son, a lovely young man, who was married to teninteresting wives. But one day while he was absent from home these tenwives went out walking with a handsome young man, which so enraged Mr. Kimball's son--which made Mr. Kimball'a son so jealous--that he shothimself with a horse-pistol. 

The doctor who attended him--a very scientific man--informed me thatthe bullet entered the parallelogram of his diaphragmatic thorax, superinducing hemorrhage in the outer cuticle of his basiliconthaumaturgist. It killed him. I should have thought it would. 

(_Soft Music_. )

I hope this sad end will be a warning to all young wives who go outwalking with handsome young men. Mr. Kimball's son is now no more. Hesleeps beneath the cypress, the myrtle, and the willow. The music is adirge by the eminent pianist for Mr. Kimball's son. He died by request. 

I regret to say that efforts were made to make a Mormon of me while Iwas in Utah. 

It was leap-year when I was there, and seventeen young widows, thewives of a deceased Mormon, offered me their hearts and hands. Icalled on them one day, and, taking their soft white hands in mine, which made eighteen hands altogether, I found them in tears, and Isaid, "Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?"

They hove a sigh--seventeen sighs of different size. They said:

"O, soon thou wilt be gonested away!"

I told them that when I got ready to leave a place I wentested. 

They said, "Doth not like us?"

I said, "I doth--I doth. "

I also said, "I hope your intentions are honorable, as I am a lonechild, my parents being far--far away. "

Then they said, "Wilt not marry us?"

I said, "O, no, it cannot was!"

Again they asked me to marry them, and again I declined, when theycried, "O, cruel man! this is too much! O, too much!"

I told them that it was on account of the muchness that Ideclined. . . . 

(_Pointing to Panorama_)

A more cheerful view of the desert. 

The wild snow-storms have left us and we have thrown our wolf-skinovercoats aside. Certain tribes of far-western Indians bury theirdistinguished dead by placing them high in air and covering them withvaluable furs. That is a very fair representation of those mid-airtombs. Those animals are horses. I know they are, because my artistsays so. I had the picture two years before I discovered the fact. The artist came to me about six months ago and said, "It is useless todisguise it from you any longer, they are horses. "

It was while crossing this desert that I was surrounded by a band ofUte Indians. They were splendidly mounted. They were dressed inbeaver-skins, and they were armed with rifles, knives, and pistols. 

What could I do? What could a poor old orphan do? I'm a brave man. The day before the battle of Bull's Run I stood in the highway whilethe bullets--those dreadful messengers of death--were passing allaround me thickly--in wagons--on their way to the battle-field. Butthere were too many of these Injuns. There were forty of them, andonly one of me, and so I said:

"Great chief, I surrender. "

His name was Wocky-bocky. He dismounted and approached me. I saw histomahawk glisten in the morning sunlight. Fire was in his eye. Wocky-bocky came very close

(_Pointing to Panorama_)

to me and seized me by the hair of my head. He mingled his swarthyfingers with my golden tresses, and he rubbed his dreadful tomahawkacross my lily-white face. He said:

"Torsha arrah darrah mishky bookshean!"

I told him he was right. 

Wocky-bocky again rubbed his tomahawk across my face, and said:

"Wink-ho-loo-boo!"

Says I, "Mr. Wocky-bocky, " says I, "Wocky, I have thought so for years, and so's all our family. "

He told me I must go to the tent of the Strong Heart and eat raw dog. It don't agree with mo. I prefer simple food. I prefer pork-pie, because then I know what I'm eating. But as raw dog was all theyproposed to give to me I had to eat it or starve. So at the expirationof two days I seized a tin plate and went to the chief's daughter, andI said to her in a silvery voice--in a kind of German-silvery voice--Isaid:

"Sweet child of the forest, the pale-face wants his dog. "

There was nothing but his paws. I had paused too long--which remindsme that time passes--a way which time has. I was told in my youth toseize opportunity. I once tried to seize one. He was rich; he haddiamonds on. As I seized him he knocked me down. Since then I havelearned that he who seizes opportunity sees the penitentiary. 

SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS. 

THE JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY. 

"Well, there was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley in thewinter of '49, or may be it was the spring of '50--I don't recollectexactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other isbecause I remember the big flume warn't finished when he first come tothe camp. But any way, he was the curiousest man about, always bettingon anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get any body tobet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any waythat suited the other side would suit _him_--any way just so's he got abet _he_ was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; hemost always came out winner. He was always ready and laying for achance. There couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but thatfeller'd offer to bet on it and take any side you please, as I was justtelling you. If there was a horse-race you'd find him flush or you'dfind him busted at the end of it. If there was a dog-fight, he'd beton it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was achicken-fight, he'd bet on it. Why, if there was two birds setting ona fence, he would bet you which one would fly first. Or if there was acamp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, whichhe judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and agood man. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres he wouldbet you how long it would take him to get to--to wherever he was goingto; and if you took him up he would follow that straddle-bug to Mexicobut what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he wason the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tellyou about him. Why, it never made no difference to _him_, he'd bet_any_ thing--the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sickonce for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to saveher; but one morning he come in and Smiley up and asked him how shewas, and he said she was consid'able better--thank the Lord for hisinf'nit mercy!--and coming on so smart that, with the blessing ofProvidence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, 'Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half she don't, any way. '"

 * * * * * * * *

"Well, this yer Smiley had rat-terriers, and chicken-cocks, andtom-cats, and all them kind of things till you couldn't rest, and youcouldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. Heketched a frog one day and look him home, and said he cal'lated toeducate him, and so he never done nothing for three months but set inhis back-yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he _did_learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the nextminute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut--see himturn one summerset, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, andcome down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so inthe matter of ketching flies, and kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he could see him. Smileysaid all a frog wanted was education and he could do 'most any thing, and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here onthis floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog--and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd springstraight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there and flop down onthe floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching theside of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't noidea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see afrog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level he couldget over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed youever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand, and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him, as long ashe had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well hemight be, for fellers that had traveled and been every-wheres all saidhe laid over any frog that ever _they_ see. 

"Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice-box, and he used tofetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--astranger in the camp he was--come acrost him with his box and says:

"'What might it be that you've got in the box?'

"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, 'It might be a parrot, or itmight be a canary, may be, but it ain't--it's only just a frog. '

"And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it roundthis way and that, and says, 'H'm--so 'tis. Well, what's _he_ goodfor?'

"'Well, ' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good enough for _one_thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County. '

"The feller took the box again and took another long, particular lookand give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate; 'Well, ' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any otherfrog. '

"'May be you don't, ' Smiley says. 'May be you understand frogs, andmay be you don't understand 'em; may be you've had experience, and maybe you aint only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in CalaverasCounty. '

"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "'Well, I'm only a stranger-here, and I aint got no frog; but if I hada frog I'd bet you!'

"And then Smiley says, 'That's all right--that's all right; if you'llhold my box a minute I'll go and get you a frog. ' And so the fellertook the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and setdown to wait. 

"So he set there a good while, thinking and thinking to hisself; andthen he got the frog out and pried his mouth open, and took a teaspoonand filled him full of quail-shot--filled him pretty near up to hischin--and set him on the floor. Smiley, he went to the swamp andslopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched afrog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says, 'Now, if you're ready, set him along-side of Dan'l, with his forepaws justeven with Dan'l, and I'll give the word. ' Then he says, 'One--two--three--_git_!' and him and the feller touched up the frogsfrom behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan'l give aheave, and hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it warn'tno use--he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church, andwouldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a gooddeal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no ideawhat the matter was, of course. 

"The feller took the money and started away; but when he was going outat the door he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--so--at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, 'Well, ' he says, 'I don't see nop'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog. '

"Smiley, he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a longtime; and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation that frogthrowed off for. I wonder if there aint something the matter withhim--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow. ' And he ketched Dan'l bythe nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why, blame my cats ifhe don't weigh five pound!' and turned him upside down, and he belchedout a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he wasthe maddest man. He set the frog down and took out after the feller, but he never ketched him. "

 INDEX. 

 _An Index to the American Authors and Writings and the Principal American Periodicals mentioned in this Volume_. 

 Abraham Lincoln, 143. Adams and Liberty, 60. Adams, John, 49. Adams, J. Q. , 72, 85. Adams, Samuel, 43, 44. After-Dinner Poem, 135. After the Funeral, 142. Age of Reason, The, 51-53, 60. Ages, The, 153. Alcott, A. B. , 93, 104. Aldrich, T. B. , 170, 197. Algerine Captive, The, 63. Algic Researches, 130. Alhambra, The, 74. All Quiet Along the Potomac, 184. Alnwick Castle, 81. Alsop, Richard, 55, 56. American, The, 206. American Civil War, The, 182. American Conflict, The, 182. American Flag, The, 80. American Note-Books, 95, 114, 116, 119, 128. American Scholar, The, 93, 104, 123. Ames, Fisher, 50, 51. Among My Books, 143. Anabel Lee, 165. Anarchiad, The, 55. Army Life in a Black Regiment, 186. Army of the Potomac, The, 183. Art of Book-Making, The, 77. "Artemus Ward, " 188, 189-193, 194. Arthur Mervyn, 63, 65. At Teague Poteet's, 203. Atlantic Monthly, The, 136, 143, 150, 151, 185, 186, 195, 197, 208. Atlantis, 169. Auf Wiedersehen, 142. Autobiography, Franklin's, 28, 38, 39, 40, 73. Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, The, 132, 136, 137. Autumn, 125. 

 Backwoodsman, The, 72. Ballad of the Oysterman, 133. Ballads and Other Poems, 126. Bancroft, George, 123, 138, 145, 146. Barbara Frietchie, 158. Barlow, Joel, 51, 52, 55-58. Battle Hymn of the Republic, 183. Battle of the Kegs, 59. Battlefield, The, 154. Bay Fight, The, 184. Bay Psalm Book, The, 21. Bedouin Song, 172. Beecher, H. W. , 175, 176. Beecher, Lyman, 98, 175. Beers, Mrs. E. L. , 184. Beleaguered City, The, 126, 129. Belfry of Bruges, The, 126, 127. Beverly, Robert, 17. Biglow Papers, The, 139-142, 159, 188. "Bill Nye, " 193. Black Cat, The, 166. Black Fox of Salmon River, The, 157. Blair, James, 14. Blithedale Romance, The, 95, 118, 172, 209. Bloody Tenent of Persecution, The, 22, 23. Blue and the Gray, The, 184. Boker, G. H. , 197. Bostonians, The, 209. Boys, The, 134. Bracebridge Hall, 75, 76, 187. Bradford's Journal, 21, 24, 25, 31, 33. Brahma, 105, 109. Brainard, J. G. C. , 156, 157, 175. Brick Moon, The, 196. Bridal of Pennacook, The, 157, 159. Bridge, The, 129. Broken Heart, The, 77. Brown, C. B. , 63-65. Browne, C. F. (See "Artemus Ward. ") Brownell, H. H. , 184, 185. Bryant, W. C. , 68, 80, 124, 125, 133, 151-155, 162, 169. Buccaneer, The, 89. Building of the Ship, The, 127. Bundle of Letters, A, 206. Burnett, Mrs. F. H. , 205. Bushnell, Horace, 99. Busy-Body, The, 38, 53, 74. Butler, W. A. , 170. Byrd, Wm. , 16, 17. 

 Cable, G. W. , 203. Calhoun, J. C. , 46, 86. Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, 123. Cape Cod, 111. Capture of Fugitive Slaves, 140. Cary, Alice, 173. Cary, Phoebe, 173. Cask of Amontillado, The, 166. Cassandra Southwick, 159. Cathedral, The, 144. Cecil Dreeme, 185. Century Magazine, The, 150, 183, 197. Chambered Nautilus, The, 135. Chance Acquaintance, A, 208. Channing, W. E. , 73, 90-92, 93, 97-100, 106. Channing, W. E. , Jr. , 106, 110, 119. Channing, W. H. , 106. Chapel of the Hermits, The, 158. Character of Milton, The, 91. Charleston, 184. Children of Adam, 177. Choate, Rufus, 89, 90. Christian Examiner, The, 91. Circular Letters, by Otis and Quincy, 44. City in the Sea, The, 162. Clara Howard, 63. Clari, 84. Clarke, J. F. , 105, 106. Clay, Henry, 86. Clemens, S. L. (See "Mark Twain. ") Columbiad, The, 56, 57. Common Sense, 51. Companions of Columbus, 74. Condensed Novels, 200. Conduct of Life, The, 107. Confederate States of America, The, 182. Conquest of Canaan, 57. Conquest of Granada, 73, 74, 78. Conquest of Mexico, 145. Conquest of Peru, 145. Conspiracy of Pontiac, The, 147. Constitution and the Union, The, 87. Constitution of the United States, The, 45, 85. Contentment, 85. Contrast, The, 63. Conversations on the Gospels, 104. Conversations on Some of the Old Poets, 143. Cooke, J. E. , 169. Cooper, J. F. , 61, 71, 73, 81-84, 89, 107, 130, 147, 168, 204. Coral Grove, The, 175. Cotton, John, 22, 23, 28, 29. Count Frontenac and New France, 147. Courtin', The, 141, 188. Courtship of Miles Standish, The, 26. Cow Chase, The, 59. Cranch, C. P. , 95, 106. Crime against Kansas, The, 149 Crisis, The, 51. Croaker Papers, The, 81. Culprit Fay, The, 80. Curtis, G. W. , 95, 197. 

 Daisy Miller, 206. Dana, C. A. , 95, 106, 151. Dana, R. H. , 68, 89. Danbury News Man, 59, 189. Dante, Longfellow's, 131. Davis, Jefferson, 182. Day is Done, The, 128. Day of Doom, The, 34. Death of the Flowers, The, 153, 154. Declaration of Independence, The, 45, 59, 85. Deerslayer, The, 83, 84. Democratic Vistas, 180. Derby, G. H. , 190. Descent into the Maelstrom, 166. Deserted Road, The, 173. Dial, The, 93, 98, 105, 106. Dialogue Between Franklin and the Gout, 39. Diamond Lens, The, 186. Discourse of the Plantation of Virginia, A, 12. Dolph Heyliger, 75. Domain of Arnheim, The, 166. Dorchester Giant, The, 132. Drake, J. R. , 80, 81, 89. Draper, J. W. , 182. Dream Life, 175. Drifting, 173. Driving Home the Cows, 184. Drum Taps, 180. Dutchman's Fireside, The, 79. Dwight, J. S. , 95, 100, 106. Dwight, Theodore, 55, 56. Dwight, Timothy, 55, 57, 58. 

 Early Spring in Massachusetts, 111. Echo, The, 56. Echo Club, The, 172. Edgar Huntley, 63, 65. Edith Linsey, 170. Edwards, Jonathan, 35-37, 58, 91, 97, 99. Eggleston, Edward, 202. Elevator, The, 63, 210. Eliot, John, 21, 23. Elsie Venner, 137. Emerson, Charles, 106. Emerson, R. W. , 88, 93, 96-113, 119, 122, 123, 128, 129, 138, 151, 154, 160, 179. Endicott's Red Cross, 25, 118. English Note-Books, 119. English Traits, 103, 109. Ephemerae, 176. Epilogue to Cato, 60. Eternal Goodness, 158. Ethan Brand, 117. Europeans, The, 206, 207. Evangeline, 129, 130. Evening Wind, The, 153. Everett, Edward, 89, 90, 133, 138, 189. Excelsior, 127. Excursions, 111. Expediency of the Federal Constitution, 48. Eyes and Ears, 176. 

 F. Smith, 170. Fable for Critics, A, 105, 142, 144. Facts in the case of M. Valdemar, The, 164. Fall of the House of Usher, The, 166. Familists' Hymn, The, 25. Fanshawe, 116. Farewell Address, Washington's, 49. Faust, Taylor's, 172. Federalist, The, 48, 49. Ferdinand and Isabella, 123, 145. Final Judgment, The, 35. Finch, F. M. , 184. Fire of Driftwood, The, 128. Fireside Travels, 123. Fitz Adam's Story, 141. Flint, Timothy, 72. Flood of Years, The, 155. Footpath, The, 142. Footsteps of Angels, 126. Foregone Conclusion, A, 207. Forest Hymn, 152. Fortune of the Republic, 107. Foster, S. C. , 173, 174. France and England in North America, 147. Franklin, Ben. , 28, 37, 40, 52, 53, 73, 74. Freedom of the Will, 35. French Poets and Novelists, 205. Freneau, Philip, 60-62. Fuller, Margaret, 93, 95, 99, 100, 105, 106, 109, 119, 131. 

 Galaxy Magazine, The, 197. Garrison, W. L. , 26, 87, 147, 156, 157, 174. Garrison of Cape Ann, The, 32. Geography of the Mississippi Valley, 72. Georgia Spec, The, 63. Ghost Ball at Congress Hall, The, 170. Give Me the Old, 170. Godey's Lady's Book, 150, 160. Godfrey, Thomas, 63. Gold Bug, The, 163. Golden Legend, The, 130. Good News from Virginia, 18. Good Word for Winter, A, 143. Goodrich, S. G. , 69, 72, 116. Graham's Magazine, 150, 160, 162, 164, 171. Grandfather's Chair, 32. Grandissimes, The, 203. Greeley, Horace, 95, 171, 182. Green River, 153. Greene, A. G. , 85. Greenfleld Hill, 58. Guardian Angel, The, 137, 138. 

 Hail, Columbia! 59, 60, 80. Hale, E. E. , 122, 164, 195, 196. Halleck, F. G. , 80, 81, 89, 109. Halpine, C. G. , 186. Hamilton, Alexander, 48, 49, 51, 87. Hannah Thurston, 172. Hans Breitmann Ballads, 202. Hans Pfaall, 163. Harbinger, The, 94, 95. Harper's Monthly Magazine, 150, 151, 197. Harris, J. C. , 202. Harte, F. B. , 193, 198-202. Hasty Pudding, 57. Haunted Palace, The, 165. Hawthorne, Julian, 118. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 9, 18, 25, 32, 56, 63, 93, 95, 105, 106, 108, 114-120, 124, 128, 129, 137, 138, 150, 160, 166, 172, 182, 185, 187, 188, 204, 205, 209. Hay, John, 201, 202. Health, A, 85. Heathen Chinee, The, 200. Hedge, F. H. , 95. Height of the Ridiculous, The, 132. Henry, Patrick, 43, 44, 48. Hiawatha, 61, 130. Higginson, T. W. , 75, 95, 105, 186. His Level Best, 195. History of New England, Winthrop's, 24-27. History of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford's, 24, 25. History of the Dividing Line, 16, 17. History of the United Netherlands, 146. History of the United States, Bancroft's, 123, 146; Higginson's, 75. History of Virginia, Beverly's, 17; Smith's, 15; Stith's, 17. Hoffman, C. F. , 170. Holland, J. G. , 197. Holmes, O. W. , 29, 85, 93, 94, 122, 123, 131-138, 141, 151, 153, 160, 183, 186, 187, 188. Home, Sweet Home, 84. Homesick in Heaven, 135. Hooker, Thomas, 28, 30, 31, 99. Hoosier Schoolmaster, The, 202. Hopkins, Lemuel, 55. Hopkinson, Francis, 59. Hopkinson, Joseph, 59. Horse-Shoe Robinson, 168. House of the Seven Gables, The, 115, 118. Howe, Mrs. J. W. , 183. Howells, W. D. , 63, 203-205, 207-210. Humphreys, David, 55, 56. Hymn at the Completion of Concord Monument, 110. Hymn of the Moravian Nuns, 125. Hymn to the Night, 126. Hymn to the North Star, 152. Hyperion, 131. 

 Ichabod, 158. If, Yes, and Perhaps, 195. Iliad, Bryant's, 155. Illustrious Providences, 29. In the Tennessee Mountains, 203. In the Twilight, 142. In War Time, 157. Independent, The, 176. Indian Bible, Eliot's, 21. Indian Burying-Ground, The, 61. Indian Student, The, 61. Indian Summer, 208, 209. Ingham Papers, 195. Inklings of Adventure, 169. Innocents Abroad, 193, 194. International Episode, An, 206, 207. Irving, Washington, 42, 53, 68, 71, 73-82, 89, 117, 138, 187, 188, 194, 206. Israfel, 162. Italian Journeys, 208. Italian Note-Books, 119. 

 James, Henry, 185, 203-210. Jane Talbot, 63. Jay, John, 48, 49. Jefferson, Thomas, 14, 45-48, 50, 52, 61. Jesuits in North America, The, 147. Jim, 201. Jim Bludso, 201. John Brown's Body, 59, 183. John Godfrey's Fortune, 172. "John Phoenix, " 190. John Underhill, 25. Jonathan to John, 141. "Josh Billings, " 193. Journey to the Land of Eden, A, 17. Judd, Sylvester, 144. Jumping Frog, The, 193. June, 153, 154. Justice and Expediency, 157. 

 Kansas and Nebraska Bill, The, 149. Katie, 184. Kennedy, J. P. , 168. Key into the Language of America, A, 23. Key, F. S. , 60. Kidd, the Pirate, 75. King's Missive, The, 159. Knickerbocker Magazine, The, 75, 79, 116, 147, 160. Knickerbocker's History of New York, 68, 73, 75, 76, 187. 

 Lady of the Aroostook, The, 207, 209. Lanier, Sidney, 202. La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, 147. Last Leaf, The, 85, 133. Last of the Mohicans, The, 83, 84. Last of the Valerii, The, 205. Latest Form of Infidelity, The, 99. Laus Deo, 158. Leatherstocking Tales, 61, 83, 84. Leaves of Grass, 176, 177, 179. Lecture on the Mormons, 190-192. Legend of Brittany, 138. Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 75, 77. Legends of New England, 156, 157. Legends of the Province House, 118. Leland, C. G. , 202. Letter on Whitewashing, 59. Letters and Social Aims, 107. Letters from Under a Bridge, 169, 170. Letters of a Traveler, 155. Liberator, The, 86, 147, 174. Life of Columbus, Irving's, 74, 78. Life of Goldsmith, 79. Life of John of Barneveld, 146. Life of Washington, Irving's, 78. Ligeia, 165. Light of Stars, The, 126. Lincoln, Abraham, 51, 133, 180, 186, 189. Lines on Leaving Europe, 170. Lippincott's Magazine, 197. Literary Recreations, 160. Literati of New York, 160. Little Breeches, 201. Livingston, William, 53. Locke, David R. , 193. Longfellow, H. W. , 18, 25, 26, 61, 115, 116, 123-131, 133, 138, 139, 141, 142, 151, 159, 160, 162, 167, 172, 179, 197. Lost Arts, 148. Lost Cause, The, 182. Lowell, J. R. , 12, 93, 96, 104, 105, 107, 122, 123, 138-144, 151, 154, 159, 160, 172, 174, 183, 187, 188, 197. Luck of Roaring Camp, The, 199. Lunatic's Skate, The, 170. Lyrics of a Day, 184. 

 MacFingal, 54, 55, 59, 73. Madison, James, 48, 49, 61. Madonna of the Future, The, 205. Magnalia Christi Americana, 19, 28-34, 73. Mahomet and his Successors, 78. Maine Woods, The, 111. "Major Jack Downing, " 189. Man of the Crowd, The, 166. Man-of-War Bird, The, 179. Man Without a Country, The, 164, 195. Marble Faun, The, 115, 117, 118, 119. Marco Bozzaris, 81. Margaret, 144. "Mark Twain, " 188, 189, 193, 194. Maryland, My Maryland, 183. Masque of the Gods, The, 171. Masque of the Red Death, 166. Mather, Cotton, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 28-34, 36, 73. Mather, Increase, 29, 31. Maud Muller, 158. May-Day, 107. Maypole of Merrymount, The, 25. Memoranda of the Civil War, 180. Memorial History of Boston, 159. Men Naturally God's Enemies, 35. Merry Mount, 145. Messenger, R. H. , 170. Miggles, 200. "Miles O'Reilly, " 186. Minister's Black Veil, The, 117. Minister's Wooing, The, 175. Mitchell, D. G. , 175. Mocking Bird, The, 202. Modern Instance, A, 208, 209. Modern Learning, 59. Modest Request, A, 134. Money Diggers, The, 75. Montcalm and Wolfe, 147. Monterey, 170. Moore, C. C. , 170. Moore, Frank, 183. Moral Argument Against Calvinism, The, 90. Morris, G. P. , 170. Morton's Hope, 145. Mosses from an Old Manse, 114, 117. Motley, J. L. , 123, 138, 145, 146. Mount Vernon, 56. "Mrs. Partington, " 189. MS. Found In a Bottle, 168. Murder of Lovejoy, The, 123. Murders in the Rue Morgue, The, 163. Murfree, Mary N. , 203. Music-Grinders, The, 133. My Aunt, 133. My Captain, 180. My Double and How He Undid Me, 196. My Garden Acquaintance, 143. My Lite is Like the Summer Rose, 85. My Old Kentucky Home, 173. My Search for the Captain, 186. My Study Windows, 143. My Wife and I, 175. Mystery of Gilgal, The, 201. Mystery of Marie Roget, The, 163. 

 Narrative of A. Gordon Pym, The, 166. Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife, 118. Nature, 93, 101, 103, 107. Naval History of the United States, 81. Nearer Home, 173. Negro Melodies, 173. Nelly was a Lady, 173. New England Tragedies, 25. New England Two Centuries Ago, 141, 143. New System of English Grammar, A, 190. New York Evening Post, The, 152, 155. New York Tribune, The, 95, 171. Newell, R. H. , 193. North American Review, The, 89, 116, 124, 143, 151, 152. Norton, Andrews, 99. Notes on Virginia, 47. Nothing to Wear, 170. Nux Postcoenatica, 134. 

 O, Susanna, 173. O'Brien, F. J. , 185. Observations on the Boston Port Bill, 44. Occultation of Orion, The, 127, 139. Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, 142. Ode for a Social Meeting, 134. Ode to Freedom, 140. Odyssey, Bryant's, 155. Old Clock on the Stairs, The, 127. Old Creole Days, 203. Old Folks at Home, 173. Old Grimes, 85. Old Ironsides, 132. Old Oaken Bucket, The, 84. Old Pennsylvania Farmer, The, 171. Old Régime in Canada, The, 147. Old Sergeant, The, 184. On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners, 141. One Hoss Shay, The, 135, 188. Oregon Trail, The, 147. Ormond, 63, 64. "Orpheus C. Kerr, " 193. Orphic Sayings, 105. Osgood, Mrs. K. P. , 184. Otis, James, 43-45. Our Master, 158. Our Old Home, 119. Out of the Question, 209. Outcasts of Poker Flat, The, 199, 200. Outre-Mer, 124. Overland Monthly, The, 199. Over-Soul, The, 105. 

 Paine, R. T. , 60. Paine, Tom, 51-53. Panorama, The, 157. Paper, 39. Parker, Theodore, 97-100, 106. Parkman, Francis, 123, 145, 146, 147. Parlor Car, The, 210. Partisan, The, 168. Passionate Pilgrim, A, 305. Pathfinder, The, 83. Paulding, J. K. , 72, 74, 79, 80. Payne, J. H. , 84. Pearl of Orr's Island, The, 175. Pencilings by the Way, 169. Pension Beaurepas, The, 206. Percival, J. G. , 175. Percy, George, 12, 19. "Peter Parley, " 69. "Petroleum V. Nasby, " 193. Phenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica, 33. Phillips, Wendell, 122, 123, 147, 148, 157, Philosophic Solitude, 53. Philosophy of Composition, 163. Phoenixiana, 189. Piatt, J. J. , 184, 202, 208. Pictures of Memory, 173. Pilot, The, 84. Pink and White Tyranny, 175. Pinkney, E. C. , 85. Pioneer, The, 138. Pioneers, The, 71, 83. Pioneers of France in the New World, 147. Plain Language from Truthful James, 200 Planting of the Apple-Tree, The, 155. Plato, Emerson on, 108. Poe, E. A. , 63, 80, 85, 106, 116, 117, 130, 138, 150, 153, 160-169, 182, 186, 196. Poems of the Orient, 171. Poems of Two Friends, 208. Poems on Slavery, 128. Poet at the Breakfast Table, The, 136. Poetic Principle, The, 164. Poetry: A Metrical Essay, 133. Poet's Hope, A, 105. Political Green House, The, 56. Pollard, E. A. , 182. Pons, Maximus, 173. Poor Richard's Almanac, 39, 40. Portraits of Places, 207. Prairie, The, 83. Prentice, G. D. , 156, 189. Prescott, W. H. , 123, 145, 146, 151, 182. Present Crisis, The, 140. Pride of the Village, The, 77. Prince Deukalion, 171. Prince of Parthia, The, 63. Problem, The, 110. Professor at the Breakfast Table, The, 136, 137. Progress to the Mines, A, 17. Prologue, The, 135. Prophecy of Samuel Sewell, The, 33. Prophet, The, 171. Psalm of Life, The, 126, 127. Purloined Letter, The, 163. Putnam's Monthly, 123, 197. 

 Quaker Widow, The, 171. Quincy, Josiah, 43-45. 

 Rag Man and Rag Woman, The, 196. Randall, J. R. , 183. Randolph, John, 46. Raven, The, 163, 165. Read, T. B. , 173. Reaper and the Flowers, The, 126. Rebellion Record, The, 183. Recollections of a Life-time, 69, 72. Red Rover, The, 84. Register, The, 210. Remarks on Associations, 91. Remarks on National Literature, 91, 100. Reply to Hayne, Webster's, 87. Representative Men, 102, 107, 109. Resignation, 128. Reveries of a Bachelor, 175. Rhoecus, 138. Rhymes of Travel, 171. Riding to Vote, 184. Rights of the British Colonies, 45. Ripley, George, 95, 99, 100, 106, 151. Rip Van Winkle, 75. Rip Van Winkle, M. D. , 134. Rise and Fall of the Confederate States, 182. Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, 182. Rise of the Dutch Republic, 146. Rob of the Bowl, 168. Roderick Hudson, 206. Roughing It, 193, 194. 

 Salmagundi, 74, 79, 155. Sandys, George, 16, 19. San Francisco, 198. Scarlet Letter, The, 35, 117, 118. School Days, 156. Schoolcraft, H. R. , 130. Science of English Verse, 202. Scribner's Monthly, 197. Scripture Poems, 169. Seaside and Fireside, 126, 127. Seaweed, 127, 129. Selling of Joseph, The, 33. September Gale, The, 133. Sewall, J, M. , 60. Sewall, Samuel, 32, 33. Shakespeare, Ode, 89. Shaw, H. W. , 193. Shepherd of King Admetus, The, 138. Sheridan's Ride, 173. Shillaber, B. P. , 189. Sigourney, Mrs. L. H. , 107, 175. Silas, Lapham, 209. Simms, W. G. , 168. Simple Cobbler of Agawam, The, 20. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 35. Skeleton in Armor, The, 127. Skeleton in the Closet, The, 196. Sketch Book, The, 73-75, 77. Skipper Ireson's Ride, 158. Sleeper, The, 165. Sleeping Car, The, 63. Smith, Elihu, 55. Smith, John, 11, 12, 15, 19, 24. Smith, Seba, 189. Snow-Bound, 159. Society and Solitude, 107. Song for a Temperance Dinner, 134. Song of the Chattahoochie, 202. Southern Literary Messenger, The, 160, 162. Southern Passages and Pictures, 169. Sparkling and Bright, 170. Specimen Days, 180. Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature, 100. Sphinx, The, 135. Sprague, Charles, 89. Spring, 170. Spy, The, 83. Squibob Papers, 180. Star Papers, 176. Star-Spangled Banner, The, 60, 80. Stedman, E. C. , 197. Stephens, A. H. , 182. Stith, William, 17. Stoddard, R. H. , 170, 197. Story of Kennett, The, 172. Stowe, Mrs. H. B. , 174, 175. Strachey, William, 11. Stuart, Moses, 98. Suburban Sketches, 208. Sumner, Charles, 122, 132, 124, 142, 148, 157, 174. Supernaturalism in New England, 160. Swallow Barn, 168. Swinton, W. , 183. Sybaris and Other Homes, 195. 

 Tales of a Traveler, 75. Tales of a Wayside Inn, 159. Tales of the Glauber Spa, 155. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 166. Tamerlane, 161. Tanglewood Tales, 119. Taylor, Bayard, 170-173. Telling the Bees, 159. Ten Times One is Ten, 195. Tennessee's Partner, 200. Tent on the Beach, The, 159. Thanatopsis, 68, 80, 125, 152, 153, 155. Their Wedding Journey, 208. Theology, Dwight's, 58. Thirty Poems, 154. Thoreau, H. D. , 93, 96, 106, 109, 110, 114, 119, 122, 123, 125, 151, 179, 182. Timrod, Henry, 184. To a Waterfowl, 153. To Helen, 162. To M---- from Abroad, 170. To One in Paradise, 165. To Seneca Lake, 175. Tour on the Prairies, A, 71. Tramp Abroad, A, 193. Transcendentalist, The, 101, 102. Travels, Dwight's, 53. Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, 36. Triumph of Infidelity, 58. True Grandeur of Nations, The, 149. True Relation, Smith's, 15. True Repertory of the Wrack of Sir Thomas Gates, 11. Trumbull, John, 54, 55, 73. Twice-Told Tales, 115, 117, 118. Two Rivers, 112. Tyler, Royall, 63. 

 Ulalume, 165. Uncle Ned, 173. Uncle Remus, 202. Uncle Tom's Cabin, 174. Under the Willows, 142. Undiscovered Country, The, 209. Unknown Dead, The, 184. Unseen Spirits, 170. 

 Valley of Unrest, The, 162. Vanity Fair, 190. Vassall Morton, 145. Venetian Life, 208. Views Afoot, 171. Villa Franca, 142. Village Blacksmith, The, 127. Virginia Comedians, The, 196. Vision of Columbus, The, 56, 57. Vision of Sir Launfal, The, 140, 141. Visit from St. Nicholas, A, 170. Voices of Freedom, 157. Voices of the Night, 124, 126. Voluntaries, 110. Von Kempelen's Discovery, 154. 

 Walden, 111. Wants of Man, The, 85. War Lyrics, 184. Ward, Nathaniel, 20. Ware, Henry, 99. Washers of the Shroud, The, 142. Washington, George, 49, 51. Washington as a Camp, 185. Washington Square, 185. 'Way Down South, 173. Webster, Daniel, 73, 86-89, 90, 158, 187. Webster's Spelling-Book, 69. Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, A, 111. Western Windows, 202. Westminster Abbey, 77. Westover MSS. , The, 16. Westward Ho! 72. What Mr. Robinson thinks, 140. What was It?, 186. Whistle, The, 39. Whitaker, Alexander, 18. White, R. G. , 197. Whitman, Walt, 126, 176-180, 183. Whittier, J. G. , 18, 25, 26, 32, 33, 93, 133, 138, 155-160, 167, 174, 175, 179, 183, 185, 197. Wieland, 63, 65. Wigglesworth, Michael, 34. Wild Honeysuckle, The, 61. Wilde, R. H. , 84. William Wilson, 166. Williams, Roger, 22, 23. Willis, N. P. , 71, 153, 169, 171, 176. Willson Forceythe, 184. Wilson, Henry, 182. Winter Evening Hymn to My Fire, 142, Winthrop, John, 12, 21, 23-28, 31, 33. Winthrop, Theodore, 184. Witchcraft, 143. Witch's Daughter, The, 157. Wolfert's Roost, 75. Wolfert Webber, 75. Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 105. Wonder Book, 119. Wonders of the Invisible World, 21, 32. Woods, Leonard, 98. Woods in Winter, 125. Woodman, Spare that Tree, 170. Woodworth, Samuel, 84. Woolman's Journal, 65, 66, 157. Wound-Dresser, The, 178. Wrath Upon the Wicked, 35. Wreck of the Hesperus, The, 127, 129. 

 Yankee Doodle, 59. Yankee in Canada, 111. Year's Life, A, 138. Yemassee, The, 168.