John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892).

December 17, 1807, -- the year in which Longfellow was born, -- occurred the birth of John Greenleaf Whittier, second in this group of New England poets and one whose memory stands next to that of Longfellow in the affection and reverence of the American people. Unlike Longfellow, Hawthorne, and Emerson, Whittier was neither city-born nor college-bred. In his preparation for life the academic element was entirely lacking. He was a country boy. If one would catch a glimpse of Whittier's boyhood, he will find it sketched in “The Barefoot Boy”.

One bright day the district schoolmaster brought a copy of Robert Burns into this country home and read aloud the songs of Scotland's peasant poet. The New England farmer's son, then fourteen, listened with delight, and felt his own soul kindled with poetic fire. He began to write rhymes of his own, and the verses were passed about and admired.

In 1831 he published his first book “Legends of New England”, a volume of rather crude sketches, including some verse; they had already appeared in the New England Magazine. These Legends were not thought by Whittier worthy of permanent place in his Prose Works; and the same judgment was placed by him on most of his early experiments in fictitious narrative. Of his poems written previous to 1833, there are few which have survived. “The spirited Song of the Vermonters”, a product of his school-days, “The Vaudois Teacher”, and “The Star of Bethlehem” are selected by the author as the only ones of poetic value.

In 1833 Whittier's vocation was made clear. It was the turning-point in his life. The poet found inspiration in an unexpected theme.

The anti-slavery movement had already appealed to the humanitarian spirit of Whittier. He was as strong an idealist as any transcendentalist, and could not be otherwise than strongly sympathetic with the ultimate purpose of the movement. In 1833 he published at his own expense a pamphlet “Justice and Expediency” which exerted a wide influence. The verses which he wrote rang like the voice of a trumpet through the land. “Randolph of Roanoke”, “Massachusetts to Virginia”, “To Faneuil Hall”, “The Slave-Ships”, “The Hunter of Men”, “Clerical Oppressors”, “The Pastoral Letter” – these poems illustrate various phases of the poet's utterance during these momentous years. Whittier's poems of this period are the vehement utterances of emotion and conviction.

But meanwhile Whittier's pen had not been employed exclusively on writings for the cause. In 1843 Whittier published “Lays of My Home The Songs of Labor”; “The Chapel of the Hermits, and Other Poems”, in 1853; “The Panorama, and other Poems”, in 1856; and “Home Ballads”, in 1860. In these collections Whittier was taking his position as distinctively the poet of New England. Here are nature poems: “Hampton Beach”, “Lakeside”, and “Summer by the Lakeside”, “April”, and “The Last Walk in Autumn”; narrative poems embodying old New England legends: “Cassandra Southwick”, “Skipper Ireson's Ride”, and “The Garrison of Cape Ann”; idylls of the farm: “Maud Muller”, “The Barefoot Boy”; and in deeper vein, the exquisite ballad “Telling the Bees”, quaintly reminiscent of the New England setting, like the rest. Here, too, we find the strongly personal poems “My Psalm”, “Memories”, and “My Playmate”. While Whitter's prose works have never attracted much attention, we may note the publication during this period of the following volumes: “The Stranger in Lowell” (1845), a series of sketches written while the writer was editing for a brief period a newspaper in the city named; “The Supernaturalism of New England” (1847); “Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal” (1849), an attractive study of life in the Massachusetts Bay Province, realistically presented and worthy of a wider reading; “Old Portraits and Modern Sketches” (1850), and “Literary Recreations and Miscellanies” (1854), both volumes made up of essays and studies.

During the years of civil war Whittier published two volumes “In War Time” (1864) and “National Lyrics” (1865), which included the poems inspired by the events of this exciting period. Like the earlier songs born of the movement against slavery, these compositions lack art and finish; they were written in the ardor of conflict and sent immediately into print without the opportunity to meditate and correct. “Waiting” and “The Watchers” are among the best of these war lyrics; while in “Barbara Frietchie” the poet produced what is often described as the finest ballad of the struggle, although the story told in the poem is now discredited. “Laus Deo”, the most stirring of these lyrics, has an interesting history.

In 1866 Whittier published his masterpiece “Snow-Bound”, a Winter Idyll. This beautiful poem is a thoroughly realistic picture of the farm in the grasp of a New England winter. The family circle grouped in homely comfort about the roaring fireplace is that of the poet's own frugal home, but it is typical of rural life in the New England of the sixties; and the portraits are representative of the sturdy class to which the poet's family belonged. In Whittier's poem, the personal element is strong. “Snow-Bound” brought its author his first substantial pecuniary returns.

The large success of “Snow-Bound” was repeated a twelvemonth later, when the collection of narrative poems entitled “The Tent on the Beach” appeared. When the latter poems were published in book form they began to sell at the rate of a thousand copies a day. Successive volumes of his verse continued to appear at frequent intervals during the remainder of Whittier's life. He was an old man in his eighty-fifth year, universally venerated, when the final volume was published.

The popularity of Whittier increased among all classes of readers. Together with his gentle dignity of bearing and his modest shyness of manner, Whittier possessed a keen sense of humor and had a homely wit. In comparison with other American poets, Whittier must be recognized as essentially provincial. Aside from the fact that a large body of his verse, the anti-slavery poems, was necessarily of temporary value, we must remember also that the best portion of his work belongs wholly to New England. The fine artistic taste of Longfellow Whittier lacked, as he lacked the culture of broad reading and of travel; but he possessed the genuine love of nature and humanity; he had the virility of a strong character, free from all artificiality, the ardor of the truest patriotism, and, at the outset of his career, the inestimable advantage of consecration to an uplifting cause.

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