worth the having, with visions of the future worthy the disclosing-glorious beyond which we can tell, where there shall be no more pain nor sorrow--where all tears shall be wiped away. Rev. J. A. Seitz. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. The story of Whittier's life is a very brief and a very simple one. He was born near Haverhill, Mass., December 7, 1807, of a respectable Quaker family, in whose library, as the poet himself tells us, there was hardly more than a score of volumes, while "Of poetry, or good or bad, A single book was all we had." His youth was spent for the most part on his father's farm, and his education was that of the common school and the academy. At the age of 21, he removed to Boston, and became editor of The American Manufacturer, a protectionist journal. The year following (1830-31,) he was at Hartford, Conn., in charge of The New England Weekly Review, a paper of which George D. Prentice had previously been editor. From Hartford he returned to his father's farm, and, in 1835-6, represented his native town in the Legislature of Massachusetts. In the last mentioned, Mr. year Whittier became one of the Secretaries of the American Anti-Slavery Society; and, soon after removed to Philadelphia and assumed the editorial supervision of the Pennsylvania Freeman, which he conducted with such vigor and incisiveness that his office was gutted and burned by one of those mobs which disgraced American civilization during the anti-slavery contest. In 1840, he severed his connection with this paper (though he by no means forswore his devotion to the cause of emancipation,) and removed to Amesbury, Mass., on the banks of his favorite Merrimac. Here he resided for many years; though he has, somewhat recently, found a home at Oak Knoll, near South Danvers, Mass. Until the war of the rebellion brought freedom and the rights of citizenship to the toiling bondsmen of the South, Whittier's pen was constantly wielded in their behalf, and for many years of his residence at Amesbury, he was "corresponding editor" of The National Era, an anti-slavery journal of commanding influence, published at Washington. Though a life-long member of the Society of Friends, and a man of singularly genial and kindly nature, African slavery found few sturdy and uncompromising-nay, few more bitter-opponents than he. more Whittier's first book, entitled "Legends of New England in Prose and Verse," was published in 1831. The best of his longer poems seem to us to be: "The Chapel of the Hermits," (which introduces St. Pierre and Rousseau,) 1852; " Snow Bound,” 1865, "The Tent on the Beach," 1867; "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim," (eulogy of Francis Daniel Pastorine, one of the early Friends,) 1872. most Whittier's reputation rests, however-as, indeed, is the case with American authors-on his briefer poems, rather than on his longer and more elaborate works; and those briefer poems- - such snatches of song as "Barbara Fritchie," "Maud Muller," and "The Eternal Goodness”- -are household words, throughout the northern states at least. The first thing that it occurs to one to say with reference to a poet whom he has intelligently studied is, probably, the most significant thing, and, in placing our own poets, or those of the mother-country, it is well to notice what characteristic is first mentioned by a majority of competent critics. It occurs to every one to credit Shakspere, first of all, with marvelous insight into the character and motives of men; to ascribe to Wordsworth, as his leading characteristic, an insight, nearly as profound, into the mysteries of nature; to give to Tennyson, in the first instance, praise for rare artistic excellence. In the case of Whittier, the first thing that it occurs to everyone to say is, that he is, pre-eminently, the poet of humanity. Unlike many of our northern poets, Whittier threw his whole heart into his anti-slavery poems. He was fired by an enthusiasm for humanity, and nerved by a detestation for wrong, which can only be matched by Lowell in "The Present Crisis". an intensity of passion to which, in their ordinary moods, Lowell and Longfellow afford no parallel. How tame, for instance, in comparison with a score of Whittier's stirring lyrics, are Longfellow's lines to William E. Channing, beginning: "The pages of thy book I read, Whittier's sympathy with humanity is by no means confined to our southern bondsmen. Wherever man is oppressed, there he finds, in Whittier, a passionate advocate of his claim to emancipation. His sympathy with human suffering is, indeed, so strong as to make him sometimes bitter and malignant a fact that is exemplified in his poems on Pio Nono (Centennial edition, pp. 111, 139, 189,) which, though founded justice and truth, are so virulent, so caustic, that we have sometimes wished Whittier had never written them. on This virulence of which we complain has marred the artistic develop ment of our poet. Vapereau says of him: "Whittier, a Quaker in belief and an abolitionist by religion and by political principles, carries into his struggle against slavery an ardor which mars his poetical talent. His poetry, accordingly, though full of spirit and vigor, leaves much to be desired so far as form and elegance of expression are concerned." It is very much to Mr. Whittier's credit as a man; but it necessarily affects our estimate of him as a poet; that he deliberately sacrificed, to the cause of social and political reform, his. poetical tastes. And that he deliberately did this, is shown by many passages in his poems (Centennial edition, pp. 117, 135, 215, 246)--notably, by that description of himself, in "The Tent on the Beach," as, "A dreamer born, Who, with a mission to fulfil, Had left the Muses' haunts to turn The crank of an opinion-mill." Contact with error, even for the noblest purpose, is not without its corrupting influence on those who engage in the death-grapple-a fact which is fairly expressed, by Whittier himself, in the lines: "Not ours the Theban's charmed life; Of this fact, if we are not greatly mistaken, Mr. Whittier's own poetic development affords a striking example. He is not-as a literary artist, at least what he would have been had his lot been cast in kindlier days. We have already said that Whittier's reputation rests mainly upon his shorter poems. Many of those poems-and those, the most effective ones -are "occasional" poems, and likely to lose their hold on the hearts of the people when the occasion that gave them birth is forgotten. “Le Marais du Cygne" and "The Man of the Branded Hand," for instance, are already things of the past. "Barbara "Barbara Fritchie," again, cannot be felt by the rising generation, who have to look up the circumstances that suggested the poem in some history of the rebellion, and are involved in discussion whether any such incident actually occurred, as it was felt when the whole nation was thrilled with the passions of civil war. In view of this fact, it has seemed to us that Mr. Whittier's fame may prove somewhat ephemeral-that the next century may question the justice of that immense popularity which he achieved among his contemporaries. In rapidly seizing an occasion, however in voicing the passion which pulses in the veins of his countrymen- Whittier secures fire and enthusiam; and thus gains in general effectiveness, though by the f.eqnent sacrifice of artistic finish. He is, decidedly, the most spirited of our poets; though Lowell shrewdly hints As a writer in Fraser's Magazine has well said: "His faults-harshness and want of polish--are evident; but there is more life, and spirit, and soul, in his verses than in those of eight-ninths of Mr. Griswold's immortal ninety." It follows naturally, from what we have already said, that in lyrical capacity to which fire and enthusiasm so greatly minister-Whittier surpasses all other American poets. He is pre-eminently a poet of the heart rather than the intellect. As E. P. Whipple says: "He seems, in some of his lyrics, to pour out his blood with his lines. There is a rush of passion in his verse which sweeps everything along with it;" or, to borrow the words of Channing, "His poetry bursts from his soul with the fire and energy of an ancient prophet." It is not alone however, when he voices the indignation of a great people, as in his "Mantle of St. John de Matha," or utters the cry of personal passion, as in "The Sisters," that Whittier touches a sympathetic chord in every breast. How tender, how tearful, how soul-subduing, he not infrequently is, can be attested by many a household who have wept over his touching poem entitled "Gone." Whittier is a lover of nature; but by no means a Wordsworthian interpreter of nature. He is, indeed, inferior to Bryant in this respect. But on the other hand, he surpasses Bryant-and, indeed, surpasses all other American poets-in his intense Americanism. Mr. E. C. Stedman has called Hawthorne "the one New Englander," (perhaps undesignedly paralleling Lowell's description of Abraham Lincoln as "the first American.") But we insist that Whittier is as thoroughly imbued as Hawthorne with the New England spirit; and far less inclined than Hawthorne to emphasize the gloomier aspects of the old New England life. Take, to illustrate the point that we make, Skipper Ireson's Ride;" or the shrewd, quaint, mildly satirical description of a New England farmhouse in the prelude to "Among the Hills;" or, best of all, "Snow Bound" -the only one of Whittier's longer poems that is sure to live. Of "Snow Bound," Mr. Richard H. Stoddard says incidentally illustrating the position which we assign to Whittier as the most intensely American of our poets "If I wished to give an intelligent foreigner an idea of Mr. Whittier's genius, and, at the same time, an idea of the characteristics of American poetry, I should ask him to read Snow Bound.' This exquisite poem has no prototype in English literature, unless Burns's 'Cotter's Saturday Night' be one; and it will be long, I fear, before it has a companion-piece. It can be fully appreciated only by those who are New England born, and on whose heads the snows of fifty or sixty winters have fallen. One must have been snow bound in order to recognize the faithfulness of Mr. Whittier's pictures of winter life and landscape, and to enjoy the simple pleasures of a country homestead in a great snow storm." But a query just here, in the line of what we have already suggested respecting the probable permanence of Whittier's popularity. If one must have been snowed under to appreciate "Snow Bound;" and be a New Englander of fifty years' standing, to have been snowed under; is posterity likely to see, in Whittier's acknowledged masterpiece, that mingled truth and beauty which gives "Snow Bound" such significance to us older heads to-day? as Whittier's poetry is, as he ripens and matures, characterized by a growing tenderness and sweetness, which has been regarded by some as even excessive in the emphasis which is laid upon the milder and more beneficent aspects of the divine nature. Such poems "The Eternal Goodness," and some passages from "The Tent on the Beach," have, indeed, been made the theme of pretty sharp theological discussion. Mr. Whittier has recently said that, while the poems thus criticised express his hope, his desire, his longing, for all mankind; the result of his thought, the embodiment of his mature conviction, respecting the vexed question of man's future destiny, is to be found in a poem entitled "The Answer," (Centennial edition, p. 243,) which is conceived quite in the spirit of Alexander's terribly orthodox hymn: "There is a time, we know not when, A point, we know not where, That seals the destiny of men To glory or despair." With "The Eternal Goodness,' one who is curious respecting Whittier's theological opinions, should certainly compare "The Answer." But the excessive tenderness and sweetness of most of his later poems is a not unnatural-and to our mind, a not unpleasant reaction from the harshness and acerbity into which he was betrayed, as a practical reformer, in his earlier years. We love best to picture Whittier to ourselves, seated beneath the ample veranda of "Oak Knoll," old and well-nigh deaf, but still singing, in strains that have touched the sympathies of millions: "And so beside the silent sea No harm from Him can come to me I know not where his islands lift Beyond his love and care. O brothers! if my faith is vain, And Thou, O Lord, by whom are seen the holy." Perhaps Agur had lived intimately with himself a few years, and had formed this opinion from studious self-examination or convincing experience. The general result of a profound self-knowledge is humility and sometimes a keen self-reproach. Yet we cannot wholly accept the son of Jakeh's opinion of himself. From a few things in his prayer, he certainly seems to have learned wisdom" and to have had "the knowledge of the holy." "Every word of God is pure," he says, "and he is a shield to them that trust in him"- -a sentence which seems to have sprung from deep religious conviction. But there is another petition in the prayer of Agur which shows that he was a real philosopher and knew how to apply his philosophy to the practical affairs of life. "Give me neither poverty nor riches," he says; "feed me with food convenient for me." Even Seneca himself in all his delineations of a happy life has hardly given us a better ideal of contentment than this. It is one which commends itself to us quite as much in these days as in the days of Agur. To-day, as of old, we live in the age of Diogenes and of Croesus. Diogenes lives in his tub, and Croesus rolls in his uncounted wealth. But the state of the happy man, so far as external conditions can influence it, is very likely to be found between them. The old monkish philosophy of the Diogenes type has been well tried and rejected. Poverty in itself is not a blessing, but a curse; and, instead of justifying it, all the resources of political and social science are now summoned to banish it. are quite willing that Diogenes. should speak words of wisdom to us, but we would rather hear them from a temple than a tub. Croesus, on the other hand, is still a king. In spite of our democracy he wields a We golden sceptre. He builds our railroads, uncovers our mines, stretches the electric wire from shore to shore, ploughs the ocean with steam, garners our crops, and in his royal capacity receives the homage of the Stock Exchange. And yet, after all, Croesus may not be a happy man. With all his wealth and power and possession, the wise Solon may sometime whisper into his ear a revealing word which makes him tremble when he thinks of the mutations of fortune. Riches bring their burdens as well as their blessings. If their wings are not kept closely clipped, they may suddenly surprise us by flying away. The most favorable state for mental growth and development, for the moderation of the passions, for freedom from the temptations of covetousness, in short for the growth of all those virtues which make a healthy and happy man, are to be found, not under the bondage of poverty on one hand, or the bondage of wealth on the other, but in that perfect freedom which comes from the enjoyment of a contented mind and the possession of those things which are "convenient" for the body and the soul. There are few who can manage great riches; the majority are controlled by them. It matters little whether the man's soul is buried under gold or rags, so long as he is immured in either. The recent lessons of moral failure in commercial life serve to teach us what the world is so long in learning, that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." THE GRAND essentials of happiness are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. LET US try simply to do right actions, without thinking of the feelings they are to call out in others. |