most complete work in dialectic verse, and the noblest heroic ode that America has produced, each and all ranking with the first of their kinds in English litera ture of the modern time. CHAPTER X. WALT WHITMAN. I. Whatever we Whitman: born in West Hills, May 31, F things counted dear to a minstrel's heart, and Walter which can make him patiently endure the common ills of life, this poet has secured a bounteous share. No one more conspicuously shines by differ- Long ence. Others are more widely read, but who else has Island, been so widely talked of, and who has held even a 1819. few readers with so absolute a sway? may think of his chantings, the time when it was possible to ignore him; whatever his ground may be, he has set his feet squarely and audaciously upon it, and is no light weight. Endeavor, then, to judge him on his merits, for he will and must be judged. He stands in the roadway, with A chal his Salut au Monde : "Toward all has gone by I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the signal, There are not wanting those who return his salutation. He is in very good society, and has been so for a long while. At the outset he was favored with the hand of Emerson, and, once acknowledged at court, allies quickly flocked around him. No writer holds, in some respects, a more enviable place than burly Walt Whitman. As for public opinion of the profes lenger. Publicity at home and abroad. sional kind, no American poet, save Longfellow, has attracted so much notice as he in England, France, Germany, and I know not what other lands. Personal items of his doings, sayings, and appearance constantly have found their way to the public. In a collection of sketches, articles, debates, which have appeared during the last fifteen years, relating to American poets, the Whitman and Poe packages, before the deaths of Emerson and Longfellow, were each much larger than all the rest combined. Curiously enough, three fourths of the articles upon Whitman are written by friends who assert that he is neglected by the Incidental press. Not only in that publicity which is akin to fame, and stimulating to the poet, has he been thus fortunate; but also in the faculty of exciting and sustaining a discussion in which he has been forced to take little part himself; in an aptitude for making disciples of men able to gain the general ear, and vying with one another to stay up his hands; in his unencumbered, easy way of life; finally, in a bodily and mental equipment, and a tact or artistic instinct to make the most of it, that have established a vigorous ideal of himself as a bard and seer. These incidental successes, which of course do not confirm nor conflict with an estimate of his genius, are brought to mind as the features of a singular career. successes. Such a poet must find a place in any review of A difficult the course of American song. Otherwise, however poet to esti- observant of his work from the beginning, I well mate. might hesitate to express my own judgment of thoughts and modes which, like questions in philology or medicine, seem to provoke contention in which men act very much like children and little to the advantage of The debate all concerned. The disputants who arise when an him. innovator comes along never were divided more concerning A FAIR MODE OF CRITICISM. sharply, - not even in that classico-romantic conflict which would have made the fortune of a lesser poet than the author of "Hernani." Perhaps it would be found, upon examination, that the class which declines. to regard Whitman as a hero and poet has been content with saying very little about him. If his disciples are in a minority, it is they who chiefly have written the contents of the package mentioned, who never lose a point, who have filled the air with his name. Our acceptance of their estimate almost has seemed the condition of their intellectual respect. At times we are constrained to infer that this poet is to be canonized, not criticised, — that he, they and others may say to Emerson, Lowell, Tennyson, "Thou ailest here, and here"; but woe unto them that lay hands on the Ark of the Covenant. Two points belong to my own mode of inquiry: How far does the effort of a workman relate to what is fine and enduring? and, how far does he succeed in his effort? Nor can I pay Mr. Whitman any worthier tribute than to examine fairly his credentials, and to test his work by the canons, so far as we discover them, that underlie the best results of every progressive art. I recall his own comment on Emerson: "As I understand him, the truest honor you can pay him is to try his own rules." If his poetry is founded in the simplicity and universality which are claimed for it, and which distinguish great works, the average man, who reads Shakespeare and the English Bible, ought to catch glimpses of its scope and meaning, and therefore I am guilty of no strange temerity in forming some opinion of these matters. 351 Points and method of inquiry. On the other hand, if there be any so impatient Fair play. of his assumptions, or so tired of the manifestoes of his friends, as to refuse him the consideration they would extend to any man alive, against such also I would protest, and deem them neither just nor wise. Their course would give weight to the charge that in America Whitman has been subjected to a kind of outlawry. And those most doubtful of his methods, beliefs, inspiration, should understand that here is an uncommon and striking figure, which they will do well to observe; one whose words have taken hold in various quarters, and whose works should be studA roman-ied as a whole before they are condemned. Not only tic and siga poet, but a personage, of a bearing conformed to nificant bearing. his ideal. Whether this bearing comes by nature only, or through skilful intent, its possessor certainly carries it bravely, and, as the phrase is, fills the bill, The personal equation. a task in which some who have tried to emulate him have disastrously failed. Not only a poet and personage, but one whose views and declarations are also worth attention. True, our main business is not so much to test the soundness of his theories as to ask how poetically he has announced them. We are examining the poets, not the sages and heroes, except in so far as wisdom and heroism must belong to poetry. But Whitman is the most subjective poet on record. The many who look upon art solely as a means of expression justly will not be content unless the man is included in the problem. I, who believe that he who uses song as his means of expression is on one side an artist, wish to consider him both as an artist and a man. Questions involving the nature of verse, of expression, of the poetic life, cannot be adequately discussed in a single chapter; but a paragraph, at least, may be devoted to each point, and should be given its full weight of meaning. It is the fashion for many who reject Whitman's canticles to say: "His |