the creature of Henry VIII., or of any other merely human agency; but was one of the great demonstrations of evangelism intervening between the day of pentecost and the millennium.

ART. IV.-WHITTIER'S POEMS.

The Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier. Two volumes, 32mo., pp. 320, 304. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1857.

HERE are two neat volumes, bound in tasteful blue and gold, and handsomely printed by one of the most judicious of Boston publishing houses. They contain, it is true, but little that has not before been presented to the reading public in other forms; almost all of the poems in them having been read and weighed long ago, either in other volumes or in the periodical literature of the day. Yet the publication of this many times read and often quoted poetry, in this eye-pleasing form, is a just tribute to the noble-minded author, one of the most truly affectioned and most genuinely inspired poets of modern times. The books, and their binding, their types, paper, and bodily presence, are an honor to the worshipful bookmaking craft of Boston. The writings of Whittier are on such topics, and in such a spirit, as are best suited to the demands of an age like the present. These volumes gather them all, and bind them in as neat a setting as gems could desire; "apples of gold in pictures of silver."

Whittier was born in 1808, in Amesbury, Massachusetts, on the banks of the then idle and rural, but now the busy and city-studded, though still sweet and picturesque Merrimack; a river which these poems fitly celebrate. He is a bachelor, tall and spare; of delicate health; of simple, unostentatious habits; of disposition retiring, even to bashfulness; an ardent lover of nature and of human goodness; a bold admirer of radical freedom of thought, and strict lawabiding acting; a most hearty hater of all cant, hypocrisy, meanness, and illiberality; and an enthusiastic asserter, and a fearless, untiring defender of the inalienable rights of conscience and human liberty. He has written on almost everything, from religion to business, and even the petty details of town politics, and on all these topics he has written in prose and rhyme. His pen has been at all times in his ink-horn, ready to obey the dictates of its master's great and loving heart. And it has been kept busy, writing for the party, the

literary, and the reform newspapers of the age, and for the anniversaries of numerous associations of enthusiastic philanthropists, and the meetings of charitable societies of honest and benevolent women, who labor and pray for the coming of the better time. He has written in honor of the memory of the noble dead, who suffered for truth and freedom in other days, and on topics of current literary and critical interest; deeming, very justly, no subject too humble for his notice, if the attention of men was so aroused as that, upon it, a true and hearty word could be said, which should readily command for itself a patient and a promising hearing. Almost every day, therefore, notwithstanding his feebleness of body, he has sent out a little waif-always with a glowing torch in it-to float its moment, its hour, or its year, upon the disturbed waters of the times, to please the weary watchers for the promises of the coming day, or to light a little space on the gloomy abyss, and guide some one, endangered by the vicinity of cruel rocks, in the direction of safety.

These fragments, for they are hardly more, though made of diamond, are in all its forms; now well polished, and now rough; noble poems at one time, and little more than doggerels at another; essays, tales, novels, odes, sketches, criticisms, biographies, tirades, philippics, orations almost, and almost epics in spirit and conceptions, at least, if not in execution. They touch, of course, on almost every subject of moral interest; but the key-note of nearly all is found in intense hatred both of civil and ecclesiastical oppression and intolerance; in keen and enthusiastic love for nature, truth, right, justice, and freedom; and they display shrewd and patient observation of all the varying moods of nature and humanity. In the literary world Whittier is sometimes regarded as exclusively an anti-slavery poet; yet, among all our American writers of verse, there is not another who better knows nature in all her grandeur and beauty, in all her whims of smile and frown, of peace and strife; who can so heartily sympathize with man in all his trials and aspirations, in all his hopes and fears, in all his agonies and exultations; and who can better describe the varying glories of landscape and season, and better speak the emotions and struggles of the great soul of the race. And his poetry, though bristling with epithets of bitterest denunciation of human bondage and cruel wrong, though burning with almost implacable ire against the practices of Churchmen and statesmen, who fear to utter the true word, or cower to speak the false, has still little that is offensive to any one who hears in it the great cry of human want and woe, and who sympathizes with and admires unflinching courage and noble, heroic devotion to principle.

This collection, called complete, contains separate pieces that count one hundred and ninety-five. They are of divers lengths, from forty pages to less than half of one. They are on a vast variety of topics, many apparently discordant, but all full of lyric fire, tender sweetness, or holy faith. They touch all the keys in the great diapason of song, from the grand anthem of "Peace on earth, good will to man," to the humble song that requites the simple gift of a flower. And while it is safe to say, that it would be tiresome to read them all consecutively, it would by no means be untrue to say that not one is here, that may not, at the proper time, be read with great delight and profit. These poems are grouped together in the volumes, very properly, under several distinct heads, according to their evident design and purpose, or with reference to the topics of which they treat. Thus we have in the opening two of the longer poems, which are tales of the early times of New-England; then a family of ten poems, entitled "Legendary;" following which are thirty-eight, called "The Voices of Freedom;" and last in the first volume, a crowd of some thirty or more, named "Miscellaneous." The second volume contains "The Songs of Labor," "The Chapel of the Hermits," "The Panorama," Ballads, and several groups of Miscellaneous. Some of these divisions are too well known to need any formal introduction to any class of readers. It may not, however, be amiss to analyze them more at large.

By the Songs of Freedom Whittier has been more widely known than by any other of his writings; and in any notice of him and his poems, these very properly may be first commented on. These pieces were written at different times during the discussion of the question of Slavery in New-England, from 1833 to 1849, when they were first collected and published together. They are in many respects the poet's best verses, and many of the miscellaneous poems might be classed among them. They are spirited, are often smooth in versification, sweet in diction, harmonious in rhythm, and contain many of his most vividly sketched and most appropriately colored descriptions. The opening of the poem entitled, "Toussaint l'Overture," is rich and luxuriant almost beyond imagination. It describes a scene of tropical moonlight, such as sinks into the soul, and fills it with a sense of beauty too deep for words. The ability to sketch a broad landscape with a word or an epithet, in the hurried generalizing manner of Sir Walter Scott, is seen in parts of the World's Convention, and in the "Crisis." In this division, too, are some of his most stirring appeals, as in "The Song of the Free;" and some of his most tender and sympathetic verses, as in the "Farewell-A Slave Mother's Lament over her Daughters;"

and in the "Slaves of Martinique," certainly one of the noblest songs of deathless love and devotion to duty in any language. But the chief excellence of these Songs of Freedom is their elevated moral tone, and the grandeur of their faith in God and his eternal truth and justice, in the midst of the most complete seeming of triumph of wrong and oppression, and even in the failure of all hitherto made attempts to awaken men to a sense of their accountability, and to induce them to remember the truth and to do the right. The grandeur, the dignity, and hardships attendant on the discussion of the practical, every-day sins and wrongs of the world, and the longwaiting, dreary discouragements, and disheartening conflicts of opinion, in any moral warfare, as compared with the severest military and revolutionary struggles of any people, are thus sung in a poem entitled, "The Moral Warfare."

This division glows with the fire of an ardent and loving sympathy with the labors of the great and good men who have been freedom's champions and her forlorn hope, in her almost reckless attempts upon the bustling citadels of error in all ages. Whittier can feel as they felt, and can speak those feelings as hardly another can. He thus recalls to the recollection of mankind their names

and deeds, covered, indeed, with its own appropriate glory; but still a glory that only anointed eyes can see, till it has been told in words, and by these words he causes the full blaze of a beacon-light to shine out of their ashes to illuminate the dark places of the present, and to irradiate the pathway of ages yet to come. The "Pean," written in 1848, is full of spirit and life, and well illustrates this thought. Its touching and hopeful charity is also worthy of note. It speaks thus of the unselfish lives and the strong courage in death of those who have labored to renovate the earth; but who have passed away before the seed they had sown sprang up from the bloody, war-torn soil where they had scattered it in night and gloom.

But when the morning comes, there comes a change; and thus hopefully is a truth of deep significance beautifully spoken:

"Like mists before the growing light,
The battle cohorts melt away;
Our frowning foemen of the night
Are brothers at the dawn of day!"

Vol. i, pp. 203, 204.

The "Lines suggested by a visit to the City of Washington, in the 12th month, 1845," form a grand poem. They are not cast in the best mold for poetic grace, though the stanza is one capable, beyond almost any other, of carrying a burden of meaning. The long line at the end of each verse interrupts the easy flow and melody of the poetry, though it might be difficult to decide, whether it is the ponderous sentiment or the tardy measure that seems to fetter the verse. The poet stands near the Capitol, and looks over the "half-built town," in the cold moonlight of a winter evening, and as he gazes down on the prison and the gay houses, he hears a voice, still and silent to other ears, and thus makes it audible and powerful to the ear of mankind:

"To thy duty now and ever!

Dream no more of rest or stay!
Give to Freedom's great endeavor
All thou hast and art to-day!'

Thus above the city's murmur saith a voice, or seems to say.