have been deduced from other languages and applied to English scansion; but yet from his work may be selected many an example proving anew that English is capable of fine and deliberate metrical and melodious effects. He who recognizes Emerson's aims and methods will attempt neither to prove all his failures to be glorious successes, which men are too blind to see; nor to declare him rugged or unmelodious or obscure, the poet who, when he would, could sing so sweet and clear a song.

CHAPTER VI.

POETS OF

FREEDOM

The Idea of

American
Literature.

AND CULTURE: WHITTIER,

LOWELL AND HOLMES.

IT would seem natural to look to the United States, the world's most successful experiment in democratic government, for a literature peculiarly expressive of the idea of freedom. A certain disappointment is therefore felt when one finds, in two centuries and a half of English hisFreedom in tory on American soil, so much secondhand and second-rate theology, such weak and imitative semi-religious philosophy, and not a little that is conventional or neg ative as far as freedom is concerned, in Irving, Longfellow, and dozens of lesser writers. Is our literature, from the "Bay Psalm Book" upward, a pale reflection of better things abroad, unmarked by the national characteristics which commend the society and government of America to the half-reverent study of the old world, perplexed by the problems of the closing years of the nineteenth century?

Yet let us not forget, in the first place, that the ideas of Greek, Roman, French, German, or English individualism color but a small part of litera ture; so that no disproportionate claim should be made upon American writers. In the second

place, when timid provincialism gave way,—and never did it sooner yield in a colony,-the line of freedom's light became strongly and constantly apparent in Franklin's state and miscellaneous papers; in hundreds of speeches, from Otis' and Henry's to Webster's and Lincoln's; in the spiritual protests or asseverations of Channing and Emerson; and here and there in the histories of Bancroft, Motley, and Parkman. Imaginative or ideal themes chosen by poet or romancer, though less closely connected with the liberty-thought, demand free air for their development; Hawthorne's democracy liked an aristocratic background, but it was democracy still, and in its love for humanity it studied aristocracy and feudalism from the outside. Cooper sometimes carried patriotism into Buncombe County; Bryant made the solemn hills preach discreet political sermons; Emerson's "Concord Hymn" is bone and sinew of the Saxon race in their latest home; and the poetry of our wars, though poor by absolute standards, is relatively not inferior to that of other lands. Fortunate indeed, and sufficiently prominent in the patriotism of its literature, is a country that within fifty years can produce such a singer for liberty and for home as Whittier, and can proffer, as in Lowell's verse, the hot fire of localism and the calm culture of deliberate study.

The prime rhetorical requisite is to have something to say; and so we demand of the

would-be poet that he sing to us a

John Greenleaf Whittier, b. 1807.

true song. Whittier, in his passionate anti-slavery

ballads, his lyrics and idyls of the plain New Eng land home, and his serene hymns of religious trust, sings from the pure depths of a sincere soul. His verse is diffuse and of irregular merit; from it there might be drawn an instructive glossary of mispronunciations and excruciating rhymes; and it contains a large percentage of those "occasional" poems which would be a literary pest were they not so promptly and efficaciously covered by the recurrent tides of time. Yet Whittier, without being able to avail himself of the spoils of classical culture, and with all the disadvantages incident to the calling of the political poet, has succeeded by the strength of his conviction,-a conviction affecting, as well as relying upon, the spontaneous grace of a natural melodist. Sometimes his lame muse of language "goes halting along where he bids her go free"; but at other times thought and form unite in unstudied beauty. Not one of the chief American poets, in the strictest use of the adjective, Whittier has slowly reached, in a green old age, a recognized fame which the cold classicist in verse, or the restless sensationalist, might well envy. In fresh naturalness of utterance, as well as in his rise from the humble life of the sturdy New England Quaker yeomanry, he is in a small way the American Burns; yet how different his serene and undisturbed career-amid the glare and hate of the anti-slavery conflict-from the woe and excess of the short life of the great Scotch lyrist!

The numerous books by Whittier, the non-sig

nificant titles of which do not call for recapitulation, have been for the most part small collections of miscellaneous poems, taking their names from the first, or longest, or most noteworthy lyrics or descriptive pieces. He began to send Whittier's "verses" to a local newspaper, printed Books. near his Massachusetts birthplace, when he was but seventeen. The muse of song beckoned him when a farm-lad or shoemaker's helper, and she still led him forward at fourscore years. At the district school or the town academy of Haverhill, and at the editor's desk in Haverhill, Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia, or Washington, his thought and pen were never long sundered, and he produced an uninterrupted series of songs of American country life; bugle blasts in the van of freedom; or organ strains of deep religious faith and hope. Whittier, on the whole, has lived nearer the homely heart and life of his northern countrymen than any other American poet, save Longfellow. His reformatory lyrics have been saved from a shrill strident tone by his refreshing habit of turning aside to the simplest and most peaceful country scenes and characters; and the chief idyl of New England, "Snow-Bound," resembles "The Cotter's Saturday Night" in its presentation of the soul as well as the body of the people's life. With the exception of "SnowBound," the greater part of his poetical product has been exactly and constantly of the character which attracts, instructs, and benefits for the time, but lacks the inherent elements of perennial great