the fields and woods, — to feel a devout and poetic enthusiasm. We have but to open our eyes on street and roof, and merchandise from far countries,— matter wonderfully designed for such transformations by means of men wonderfully made for the work, a wonder doubly divine. Let us look not only through telescope and microscope, but also at the instruments themselves, to behold the All-glorious. The sound of bell and organ, and the roar of machinery, are as vocal of Him as are cataract and avalanche, when they "in their perilous fall shall thunder God." Nor is the climax of any art required to this end, the webs of Persia, the spires of Europe, the Herschelian reflector, or Atlantic steamship. The commonest reproductions of matter are full of this poetry and natural theology, — the barest walls no less than painted ceilings, — the coarse raiment of the laborer no less than laces subtile as frost-work, or silks of changing hues that undulate like a purple sunset on a billowy sea. Everything in city or country, in earth or heaven, is lustrous with the light of Him whom we think of, in childhood, as a human person; in youth, as a superhuman one, who speaks in thunder and descends in the mystery of night; in manhood, as the unseen Reality who shines through all appearances. As we walk onward in the gathering darkness of care and sorrow, one ray after another struggles through the visible, until, as in the annual illumination of a great cathedral, every line of the temple of existence flashes forth the omnipresent Light; we read the mighty plan in touches of fire, and gaze upon the infinite Light, Love, and Beauty.

And let it be noticed that the final triumph of truth, the union of heaven and earth, is represented, in inspired vision, in terms of art, not of nature. It is a city of pearl and gold, descending out of heaven. May it not picture the descent of knowledge, as well as holiness, to earth, the union of art with nature, as well as of God with man? However this may be, there is a point of view, if not on earth, yet high in the heavens, where the whole universe, material and spiritual, natural and artificial, is embraced in one complex purpose,— one great thought of God.

ART. II.-1. Poems. By JOHN G. WHITTIER. Boston: B. B. Mussey & Co. 2. Margaret Smith's Journal.

1849.

Boston: Ticknor, Reed, &

3. Old Portraits and Modern Sketches. By JOHN G. WHITTIER. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, & Fields. 1850.

4. Songs of Labor. By JOHN G. WHITTIER. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, & Fields. 1850.

5. Chapel of the Hermit, and other Poems. By JOHN G. WHITTIER. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, & Fields. 1853.

JOHN G. WHITTIER, the Boanerges of American poets, was born in 1808, of Quaker parentage, in the romantic outskirts of Haverhill, a beautiful Massachusetts town on the Merrimack, where we recognize the scenes of many of the incidents which form the groundwork of his ballads. His ancestors had suffered not a little from Puritan intolerance, and he consequently comes honestly by the bitterness towards the early Puritans so observable in his writings. Every one must be struck by the contrast between the peaceful tenets of his professed Quakerism and the martial vehemence of his denunciation against the old persecutors of his family, a fact showing the irrepressibleness of the combative principle of human nature under the restraints of mere theory. The spot of his birth, which had been inhabited by his family for four or five generations, he has thus described in "The Yankee Zincali."

"The old farm-house nestling in its valley; hills stretching off to the south, and green meadows to the east; the small stream which came noisily down its ravine, washing the old garden wall, and softly lapping on fallen stones and mossy roots of beeches and hemlocks; the tall sentinel poplars at the gateway; the oak forest, sweeping unbroken to the northern horizon; the grass-grown carriage-path, with its rude and crazy bridge; the dear old landscape of my boyhood lies outstretched before me like a daguerreotype from that picture within, which I have borne with me in all my wanderings. I am a boy again."

Until about his eighteenth year Whittier lived upon his father's farm, diversifying his agricultural labors by attendance

upon the winter's country school, by occasional essays at verse, which were duly communicated to the Haverhill Gazette, the paper which, as he says, " once a week diffused happiness over our fireside circle, making us acquainted in our lonely nook with the goings-on of the great world,” and, it must be confessed, by a somewhat irregular attention to the more prosaic business of shoe-making. Indeed, upon the strength of this, "the gentle craft of leather" have laid an especial claim to him as one of their own poets; but we are afraid that mankind would go barefoot if St. Crispin had never had a more devoted disciple. It is characteristic of the thrift of New England farmers to provide extra occupation for a rainy day, and during the winter season, or when the weather is too inclement for out-of-door work, the farmer and his sons turn an honest penny by giving their attention to some employment equally remunerative. For this purpose they have near the farm-house a small shed stocked with the appropriate implements of labor. But from what we know of Whittier's life, it could not have been long before he violated the Horatian precept which forbids the shoemaker to go beyond his last.

For two years after his eighteenth, Whittier attended the town academy, acquiring some classical knowledge, eagerly devouring all the reading which came within his reach, espe cially historical (whence his profuse references to historical events and personages), and contributing constantly in prose and verse to the weekly newspaper of the town. Most of these poems are omitted in his published works, though some of them merit insertion. Among them we recall several in the Scotch dialect, to which his early admiration of Burns may have given him a bias, and in which he found a zealous though friendly rival in "the Rustic Bard," Robert Dinsmore, a Scotchman whose life he has commemorated in a graceful essay contained among his prose writings. His extending reputation soon led to his being called to the editorship of "The American Manufacturer," a journal devoted to the advocacy of a protective tariff. He was at this time an ardent admirer of Henry Clay, and supported his claims to the Presidency. From "The American Manufacturer" he

went to "The New England Weekly Review" in Hartford, — a literary and political sheet, which had previously been conducted by his friends, J. G. C. Brainard and George D. Prentiss. These two papers were managed with such ability, that he was generally hailed as a great accession to the literary force of the country.

In 1831, Whittier resumed his agricultural pursuits in his native town, and in the years 1835 and 1836 represented it in the legislature of Massachusetts. In 1836 he was elected one of the Secretaries of the American Antislavery Society, and since then has devoted a great part of his time to the Antislavery movement, which had been begun in the year 1833 by Mr. Garrison and his followers, and in which he had taken an interest from its commencement. He soon removed to Philadelphia, where he remained until 1840, engaged during most of the time in editing " The Pennsylvania Freeman,” an Antislavery journal. He was in the city during the unrelenting persecution to which the Abolitionists were for a season subjected, and in 1838 was present at the burning by a mob of Pennsylvania Hall, a handsome structure erected by the contributions of English and American Abolitionists for purposes of free discussion. For the opening of this hall, Whittier wrote an address, one of the poorest of his productions, and certainly in a literary point of view unworthy of preservation. Unlike most of his compositions, it is diffuse and wordy, and it shows but little of his customary vigor. He there intimates the possibility of a future growth of ivy on the walls of the edifice, which hope was frustrated by its destruction within a week after its completion. During his residence in Philadelphia he was so absorbed in the Antislavery reform, that literature was greatly neglected. In 1840 he removed to the town of Amesbury in Massachusetts, where he has since resided, having been connected, for the last few years, as corresponding editor, with "The National Era," a literary and Antislavery paper published at Washington.

His first book appeared in 1830, entitled "Legends of New England," of which few copies are now extant. It was succeeded a year or two afterwards by "Moll Pitcher," a poetical tale of the celebrated witch of Nahant; and in 1836, by

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Mogg Megone," an Indian story in verse. A volume of poems followed, in 1838; these, and "The Lays of my Home," were collected, with others, in his "Miscellaneous Poems," which appeared in 1845, the same year with "The Stranger in Lowell," a collection of fugitive essays. These last were written while he was editing a political paper, during the excitement of a Presidential campaign, when, to use his own words, "being necessarily brought into collision with both the great political parties, he felt it at once a duty and a privilege to keep his heart open to the kindliest influences of nature and society; and they are a transcript of impressions made upon his mind by the common incidents of daily life." The subjects are such as these: "Factory Girls," "A Mormon Conventicle," "The Yankee Zincali," "Father Miller," "Modern Magic," "The Training," and other matters which he found at hand in the city of spindles. The essays are written with a freshness of style which prevents their being tedious, and they give him an opportunity to evolve his peculiar and mystic views of a future life, and kindred topics. The nature of the speculations of the lonely enthusiast are particularly apparent in the essays entitled "Hamlet among the Graves," and "Swedenborg."

"Supernaturalism of New England," given to the public in 1847, is a treatise upon the popular superstitions of New England. Though not scientifically arranged, it shows a certain method, and is interspersed with acute reflections, such as would naturally be suggested to a man of a highly poetical temperament well acquainted with his theme. His materials were evidently collected at first hand, the legends existing among a rural population, and supplied by the wrinkled crones around the wintry fireside of the farmer. The too evident scepticism of the narrator detracts somewhat from the charm of the volume, though less than if it were not compensated for by the exhibition of the quaint and humorous side of the incidents. He prefaces the work with a dedicatory poem to his sister, offering in the last stanza an excuse, if an excuse could be needed, for diversifying his reformatory labors with literary recreations.