But he also puts forth this pregnant query: "Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can ?"

IT has been rather wickedly said that every poet feels that he is a boon for which the age that has him should be grateful. This may be true of at least one; and Walt Whitman's poems, patronized though they are by Tennyson, I fear are not winning all the gratitude due from America.

"Divine am I, inside and out; I make holy whatever I touch, or am touched from."

Here is one more example of his peculiar style: —

"I conned old times,

I sat studying at the feet of the great masters;

Now, if eligible, oh that the great masters might return and study me!"

In the works of Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, and other eminent American poets, it will, I believe, be difficult to point out a single example of lusty selfappreciation. Walt Whitman does not hesitate to take a reader into his personal confidence, though he may sometimes make the reader blush and wish the poet had been more reticent.

B. 1819. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

WHEN Mr. Lowell wrote his "Fable for Critics," he undoubtedly feared that his comic reputation derived from his "Biglow Papers" would forever prevent him from acquiring any other fame than that of a born humorist. This is the curious way he then (1848) treated of himself:

"There's Lowell, who's striving Parnassus to climb,

With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme :
He might get on alone spite of brambles and boulders,
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders.

The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching,
Till he learns the distinction between singing and preaching.
His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well,
But he'd rather by half make a drum of the shell,
And rattle away till he's old as Methusalem,
At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem."

B. 1820.

HENRY W. SHAW.

D. 1885.

(Known as Josh Billings.)

JOSH BILLINGS did not know he was a genius until past the meridian of life, and then would not have found it out if he had not seen the writings of Artemas Ward. At forty-five years of age the pay for his first literary work was only $1.50. In spelling wrong he was very successful, and his reason for using phonetic language was set forth as follows:

"A man has as much rite tew spell a word as it is pronounced as he has to pronounce it the way it aint spelt."

"Noah Webster was a good speller- he had better spells than Billings."

Many of his droll sentences contain both philosophy and wit. Without much research I have found the following:

"A big genius iz generally a phool: he knows how tew do one or two things so much, that he aint fit for anything else; he iz like a grahound, good for running fast, that is all."

"Men of genius are like eagles, tha live on what tha kill, while men of talent are like crows, tha live on what has been killed for them."

"Lies are like illegitimate children, liable to call a man father when he least expekts it."

"Most people are like eggs, too full of themselves to hold anything else."

"Man was built after all other things had been made and pronounced good. If not, he would have insisted on giving his orders for the rest of the job."

B. 1822. RICHARD GRANT WHITE. D. 1885.

GRANT WHITE, in his philological writings, won great credit. Here is a specimen, from "Some alleged Americanisms," of his sledge-hammer confidence in himself :

“But, I admit, when I see phrases branded in this way as Americanisms, I have pleasure in feeling that after all there is somewhere a shot in my locker that will knock the notion into splinters."

B. 1831.

JAMES A. GARFIELD.

D. 1881.

THE following words of Garfield when a boy show at least that "the boy was the father of the man:” "I mean to make myself a man. If I succeed in that, I shall achieve success in everything else."

B. 1337.

JEAN FROISSART.

D. 1410.

THIS rather poor poet but charming chronicler travelled much, and seems to have been as adroit as any interviewer employed by an American newspaper to make those he met tell him all they knew, and all for the benefit of the public. He was fully sensible of his special gifts. Here is what he says of himself:

"I had, thanks to God, sense, memory, good remembrance of everything, and an intellect clear and keen to seize upon the acts which I could learn.”

Of his famous "Chronicles" he tells us this: "The more I work at it, the better am I pleased with it.”

When he visited the Count of Foix, he was received graciously, and was invited by him often to read

1 Gaston Phoebus, who was stained with the blood of his own son.

aloud his "Méliador" in the evening, during which time, says Froissart, "nobody dared to say a word, because he wished me to be heard; such great delight did he take in listening."

B. 1533.

MICHEL MONTAIGNE.

D. 1592.

Ir appears that "Old Montaigne" set forth all his foibles and weaknesses, as a notable and singular instance of a confession of the truth about one's self; but that he expected to win some reputation from this eccentricity can hardly be doubted; and perhaps he may also have hoped to be credited with more than sufficient philosophic merits to offset his other follies and undervaluations. He says:

"What I find tolerable of mine is not so really and in itself, but in comparison of other worse things that I see well enough received. I envy the happiness of those that can please and hug themselves in what they do; for 't is a very easy way of being pleased, because a man extracts that pleasure from himself, especially if he be constant in his self-conceit.”

The

Again: "I am not ambitious that any one should love and esteem me more dead than living. humor of Tiberius is ridiculous, but yet common, who was more solicitous to extend his renown to posterity than to render himself acceptable to men of his own. time. If I were one of those to whom the world could owe commendation, I would acquit the one half to