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versal longing for fuller recognition, for a more sunny atmosphere, a more generous judgment. Each soul feels. in some way shut in from that free and glad development which seems possible, and each catches in the poet's utterance some echo of its own unanswered speech. It is at once a complaint and a rejoicing-a complaint over that which is and ought not to be; a rejoicing over that which is not but is sure to come. And in this it is strikingly characteristic of its author. He has written much, and there is great diversity manifest in his choice of themes, and in his lines of thought, but he oftenest recognizes the woe of to-day, and the want of to-day, and sings sweetest and longest of the betterment to-morrow will bring. Lewis J. Bates is peculiarly the poet of Hope. That sweet gospel of good in the future, his muse is continually preaching. Blessed are they who hear, if so be they are discouraged and doubting, and are led up to a stronger faith!

Mr. Bates was born on the 21st of September, 1832, in the Catskill Mountain House, though he laughingly asserts that he never killed a cat in his life. His father was proprietor of the hotel, and if he possessed any poetical tendencies they must have manifested themselves in his choice of a location for hotel-keeping. His fatherthe grandfather of our poet-was Judge Bates, of Canandaigua, a local politician of some note, a fact which may account for Mr. Bates' political affinities, if there be anything in the doctrine of "natural selection," or hereditary

talent. The "maternal grandfather" was one or the quite celebrated Tappan family, of five brothers, of whom Arthur and Lewis-prominent in the anti-slavery movement were most widely known.

When Lewis was two years old his parents removed from the wild grandness of the Catskills to the dull level of Hopewell, Ontario county, New York, where they lived six years, and where they saw both prosperity and adversity. His father went into the milling business there, succeeded handsomely, and became owner of three flouring mills. Then two of these were destroyed by fire within a fortnight, and Mr. Bates was a poor man. From Hopewell the family removed to Portland, Ionia county, Michigan, and settled on a farm in what was then an almost unbroken wilderness. The father died in a few months, and the mother was left a widow with seven children, on a farm but partially cleared, in a new settlement, with no near relative in the State except the family of her husband's brother, left in the same sad situation by that brother's death a year earlier.

There were no schools about, save one in a little log hut, a mile and a-half distant, through the woods. That Lewis attended two or three winters, and afterward went to one somewhat better, in the hamlet of Portland. Thus his early educational advantages were meager enough. The whole family "roughed it" for several years, and enjoyed few of the comforts of life.

On attaining his twelfth year Lewis went with his

grandfather to Akron, Ohio, riding much of the distance in the saddle, and as they went in the spring when the rivers were high and the swamps full, and as bridges were few and miles of "corduroy" road numerous, the journey was one to be remembered. At Akron he remained about eighteen months, as errand boy in the countinghouse of Rattle & Tappan, studied algebra at odd hours, and attended an academy one term of eleven weeks. And this summed up his schooling," with the exception of ten weeks more at an academy in Geneva.

He entered a printing office, then, however—a practical school which has graduated many of our best scholars,—and there acquired more than many academic terms could have taught him. Having entered the Courier office, in Geneva, New York, as an apprentice, he soon got an inkling of the printer s art, and formed a liking for it which invariably lasts. But he was not destined to stick quietly at the case. Out one night with some older typos, "cooning," which generally means stealing fruit, he caught the small pox by landing under the window of a room in the hotel where a man lay ill of it, and came near dying. Meantime his mother had re-married, and when he was well again he returned to frontier life in Michigan, learned brick-making, then surveying, and at last drifted once more into a printing office.

This was in 1848, and the office was that of The Eagle, in Grand Rapids-a sheet which was issued weekly

whenever its proprietors could raise money enough to buy paper. When they could not it suspended, we have been told, and they "passed around the hat." It is now a flourishing and well-to-do daily. In this office Mr. Bates first began to write for the press, and within the next decade he wrote many poems for The Eagle which were widely copied, and it is safe to say that the name of that paper-for editors would sometimes credit-went further on the wings of his rhyme than it ever did otherwise.

But a restless disposition forbade permanency, and a year from the time he entered The Eagle office he was a sailor on Lake Michigan, engaged with another young man in running a coaster; and in a year or two of such life he had some wild experiences. Two years subsequently he was in New York City, sticking type in the establishment of John A. Gray & Co., and thence, in about a year, he went into the publishing office of the Anti-Slavery Society, under the auspices of Lewis Tappan, and there came in contact with many who were then and afterward celebrated. While there he became a regular poetical contributor to the Knickerbocker Magazine, at that time under the management of Mr. Clark, and the bright light in our periodical literature.

In 1853 he returned to Michigan and The Eagle; but soon changed to The Enquirer, on which he took his first regular editorial position as "Local." Subsequently he served for a time in the same capacity on the Madison,

Wisconsin, Journal, and other papers in that State and Michigan, varying his labors by work at the case and at the press. Through a large part of 1859 he worked a large hand press four days and two nights each week, regardless of his health, and a few months later, after exposure in the lumber forests, was prostrated with fever, and reached town and attendance more dead than alive, after twelve days of suffering. Previously in splendid physical condition, and skilled in athletic arts-an expert swordsman, and a good wrestler and runner-he has never since been strong-never since known really good health.

His first step on recovering from this illness, was to re-enter The Eagle office, now as political editor; his next, to marry. He remained with The Eagle all through the war, and during that time wrote many of his best lyrics, several of which were seized upon by composers and sent out again in sheet-music form, as "Under the Ice" had been, written several years before.

One of the finest of these lyrics written in war-time, though hardly to be classed as a war lyric, is the following, entitled

BY-AND-BY.

Under the snow are the roses of June,

Cold in our bosoms the hopes of our youth;

Gone are the wild birds that warbled in tune,

Mute are the lips that have pledged us their truth.

Wind of the winter night, lonely as I,

Wait we the dawn of the bright by-and-by.

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