For

The year 1807 saw the birth of the two poets that stand highest in American literature the one noted for the native artlessness of his genius and the other for the finished perfection to which culture at home and abroad had brought his art. In 1831 John Greenleaf Whittier (18071892) published his first volume of verse, Legends of New England, which brought little more indeed deserved no more than a local reputation. Life was strenuous; " poetry," as his father had feared, "would not give him bread," so he was about to direct his attention to politics when the antislavery movement appealed to his humanitarian spirit, and this proved the turning point in his life. twenty-seven years Whittier among the foremost of those who advocated this cause, and these years were the distinctive epoch of his life. They placed limitations upon his verse, to be sure, but ennobled and glorified it. Voices of Freedom (1849) included such ringing trumpet calls and protests as "Randolph of Roanoke," "To Faneuil Hall," and "The Slave Ships "; while "Waiting", "The Watchers ", " Barbara Frietchie," and the stirring "Laus Deo" are included in the Civil War volumes In War Time (1863) and National Lyrics (1865). Meanwhile there were appearing such narrative poems

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as "Mogg Megone " and Skipper Ireson's Ride "; such nature poems as "Lakeside " and "April "; the great religious poem,

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"The Eternal Goodness"; idyls of farm life, especially "Maud Muller " and "The Barefoot Boy "; and personal poems such as "My Psalm." In 1866 came Whittier's masterpiece, Snow-Bound, a thoroughly realistic picture of New England life, with its 'happy touches of local coloring and its idyllic atmosphere of domestic affection and of serene and untroubled faith." To the end of his long life volumes of his verse continued to appear, never showing a loss of interest in public affairs, in New England life, or the Nature whose loving interpreter he had always been.

The twin-poet with Whittier in point of his birth-year and of equal or greater rank in fame, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), wrote Poems on Slavery that were nearly synchronous with Whittier's Voices of Freedom, and thereby unconsciously chronicled the characteristic difference in the style and spirit of the two men. Whittier's verses are the native, elemental, abhorrent utterances of emotion and conviction; Longfellow, just as sincere at heart, no doubt, voiced his repugnance and dislike of slavery in polished, cultured, literary language that charmed the ear more than it attacked the evil.

From boyhood Longfellow displayed a romantic taste, which was gratified by opportunities for study on both sides of the water and fostered by his association with Harvard College. After he relinquished teaching in order to give himself more ex

His first book of verse, Voices of the Night (1839), brought him fame, and from that time on through the decades, there was scarcely a year that did not witness a new volume of verse or at least many single poems which at once took their place as classics. Evangeline, with its singular appropriateness of measure to theme, appeared in 1847; Hiawatha (1855), with its almost barbaric trochaic octosyllables and iterations (borrowed from the Finnish Kalevala) did for the imaginative side of the Indian character what Cooper had done for the material; Miles Standish, a refreshing bit of Puritan comedy (if such an anomaly can be imagined) came in 1858; and a part of the Tales of a Wayside Inn in 1863. Other Tales, much of his dramatic work, and many beautiful poems written when his genius was "enough to warm but not enough to burn," belong to the succeeding period.

Longfellow's poetry," almost feminine in its flexibility and sympathetic quality," with its all but cloying sweetness and its rare felicity of rare felicity of

phrase and rhythm, had more glow and humanity than Bryant's and greater richness and variety than Whittier's. "The qualities that especially mark it," says Simonds, "are simplicity of style, beautiful imagery, earnestness and narrative power, with an art often pensive but never morbid," a taste unerring and a chord that touched and glorified the common experiences of the human heart.

Many of the faults as well as the virtues of the prose of James Russell Lowell are reflected in his verse, but of the latter his Fable for Critics and the poetical parts of the Bigelow Papers are among the most original contributions to Yankee literature. His ardor in the political movements of his time, which called forth some of his best sonnets and lyrics, must not be forgotten; nor can we overlook his Commemoration Ode," with its solemn measure and masterly portraiture of Lincoln-one of the finest occasional poems in the language.

His intellectual fibre was stronger than Longfellow's, more versatile than Emerson's, more sincere than Poe's; and he struck a clear democratic, humanitarian chord that none of the others reached.

It is a fact that Oliver Wendell Holmes wished to be remembered by his poetry; and certain it is that "Old Ironsides," "The One-Hoss Shay, ""The Chambered Nautilus " and "The Last Leaf" are imperishable. But critics do not place his art on a very high plane, and he wrote so much occasional verse "on a colloquial level" as to produce the general impression of being a manufacturer of verse rather than a creator of it. But his vivacity, drollery, lively quips, sparkling whimsicalities and kindly human feeling make many of his poems among the most delightful in our language.

Unconventional both in substance and form was Walt Whitman (18191892), "the good gray poet." He is absolutely unique in American literature an innovator, a representative of new ideas, elemental, universal, cosmic. His vital and intense individuality was interpreted by many as offensively personal and egotistical; by others as only typical and assertively, but genuinely, democratic. His Leaves of Grass, published in 1855, displayed not only a startling and amazingly frank freedom of speech, but a form of expression that defied every principle of conventional poetic art rhyme and metre, though not

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rhythm or melody, being discarded; it was his way of expressing his revolt from conventionality. But in later years he conformed more closely to the ordinary rule of thought and expression, and in "My Captain and "Ethiopia Saluting the Flag" showed how high his capabilities were in these realms, if only he would allow himself as free exercise in them as in his bolder essayings.

Only three more names can be touched upon, and in the briefest way. Alice and Phoebe Cary (1820-1870 and 1824-1871), composed poems of memory and domestic affection, which, though distinctly femine and sentimental, are mental, are" dear to simple hearts." Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872) wrote many good bits of verse, the best of which is the languorous, oriental "Drifting" and the most popular is the battle lyric, "Sheridan's Ride." John G. Saxe (1816-1887) wrote poems of rollicking humor, touched at times with sentiment, that have caused critics to place him on the plane of Tom Hood and Richard Burham, the English poets whom he most resembles.

of its human, humorous or heart

stirring qualities.

Among these are the homely or humorous bits of Samuel Woodworth, "The Old Oaken Bucket "; George P. Morris," Woodman, Spare that Tree"; Coates Kinney, "The Rain upon the Roof "; Thomas Dunn English," Ben Bolt "; Clement C. Moore, ""Twas the Night before Christmas"; Stephen C. Foster, "My Old Kentucky Home "; Albert G. Green, "Old Grimes is Dead "; William Allen Butler, Nothing to Wear." Among the patriotic there were: Theodore O'Hara, "The Bivouac of the Dead" (written during the Mexican War); Walter Kittredge, "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground"; Ethelinda Beers ("Ethel Lynn "), "All Quiet along the Potomac Tonight"; George F. Root, "Battle Cry of Freedom "; Julia Ward Howe, "Battle Hymn of the Republic "; Francis M. Finch, "The Blue and the Gray"; and from the South, James Ryder Randall, Maryland, My Maryland" (called the " Marseillaise of the Confederacy "); Daniel Emmett, "Dixie "; Abram J. Ryan ("Father Ryan "), " The Conquered Banner"; Samuel F. Smith, " My Country "Tis of Thee "; and Francis Scott Key, "The Star Spangled

Banner."

And in a class by itself stands the

"Home Sweet Home " of John Howard Payne, which "touches the Anglo-Saxon heart in its tenderest spot and, married to a plaintive air, will be sung forever."*

Everett A. and George L. Duyckinck, Cyclopaedia of American Literature, 2 vols. (1875); Charles F. Richardson, American Literature, 1607– 1885, 2 vols. (1889); J. Franklin Jameson, The History of Historical Writing in America (1891); Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson (eds.), A Library of American Literature, 11 vols. (1891); Selden L. Whitcomb, A Chronological Outline of American Literature, Matthews Introduction by Brander (1894); Annie Fields, Authors and Friends (1896); M. A. DeWolfe Howe, American Bookman (1898); Charles Noble, Studies in American Literature (1898); Oscar Fay Adams, Dictionary of Ameri can Authors (1901); W. D. Howells, Literary Friends and Acquaintance (1901); Barrett Wendell, A Literary History of America (1901); Lorenzo Sears, American Literature in the Colonial and National Periods (1902); George Edward Woodberry, America in Literature, 2 vols., (1903); Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Henry Walcott Boynton, A Readers' History of Ameri can Literature (1903); Richard Burton, Literary Leaders of America (1904); Charles Wells Moulton (ed.), A Library of Literary Criticism (both English and American authors), 7 vols. (1904); William P. Trent, A Brief History of American Literature (1905); Carl Holliday, History of Southern Literature (1906); Mildred Lewis Rutherford, The South in History and Literature (1906); Leon H. Vincent, American Literary Masters (1906); Annie Russell Marble, Heralds of American Literature (1907); Henry Mills Alden, Magazine Writers and the New Literature (1908); Edwin W. Bowen, Makers of American Literature (1908); William E. Simonds, History of American Literature (1909); W. C. Brownell, American Prose Masters (1909); Montrose J. Moses, The Literature of the South (1910); George Rice Carpenter, American Prose: Selec tions with Critical Introductions (1911).

The first American group portrait

Art.

While in the first century of the colonial era there was little art save the work of a few local painters of mediocre merit, Bishop Berkeley, who is associated with American literature and education, gave some impetus to artistic growth when he induced John Smybert, the Scotchman (1684 1751), to settle in Boston. He it was who painted the first group in America, "Bishop Berkeley and His Family," now at Yale University. To-day we have fully three thousand painters, sculptors, illustrators, and as many architects of recognized standing.

Smybert was followed by a number of portrait painters from abroad, some of whom did good work and all of whom paved the way for the success of early American painters, at whose head stands Benjamin West (1738

1820). West's first effort was to paint a child sleeping in its cradle. Although his material was rude - a brush made of hairs from a cat's tail, colors from grinding charcoal, chalk, the blackberry, and indigo furnished by his mother's laundry - his genius was unmistakable. He studied in Italy, settled in England, and became president of the National Academy of Great Britain. He loved to aid American students in their struggle for fame and never forgot his native land. A portrait painter at the age of fifteen, he was to develop into the genius that gave to the world" Death on the Pale Horse," with all its daring and power.

Copley (1737-1815) became a portrait painter at seventeen and was more associated with America than was West, for it was not until his thirty-ninth year that he settled in England, where his reputation had