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made. When the civil war was impending he would have evaded it if possible by any concession short of surrender, as his " Word for the Hour " (January, 1861) shows. While the war continued he wrote little with direct reference to it, and never anything that showed any bitterness toward the authors of it. After it was over he would have made the terms of settlement liberal and con- ciliatory. He was too wise and too humane to stir the still living embers of passion and resent- ment ior any political end however dear to him. Of all American poets, with the single exception of Longfellow, Whittier has been the most popular, and in his case more than in that of any other the popularity has been warmed through with af- fection. This has been due in part to the nobly sim- ple character of the man, trans- parent through his verse, in part

to the fact that

his poetry, concerning itself chiefly with the obvi- ous aspects of life and speculation, has kept close to the highest levels of the average thought and sentiment. His themes have been mainly chosen from his own time and country — from his own neighborhood even — he deals with simple motives and with experiences common to all, and accord- ingly his scenery (whether of the outward or the inward eye) is domestically welcome to all his countrymen. He is never complex in thought or obscure in expression, and if sometimes his diction might gain in quality by a more deliberate choice, yet the pellucid simplicity of his phrase and the instant aptness of his epithet as often secure a more winning felicity through his frankness of confidence in the vernacular. His provincialisms of word or accent have an endearing property to the native ear, though even that will consent to a few of his more licentious rhymes. One feels that it is a neighbor who is speaking. Nor should the genial piety of his habitual thought and the faith that seeks no securer foothold than the Rock of Ages, on which the fathers stood so firmly, be overlooked among the qualities that give him a Erivilege of familiar entrance to a multitude of earts and minds which would be barred against many higher, though not more genuine, forms of poetry. His religion has the sincerity of Cowper's without those insane terrors that made its very sincerity a torture. There are many points of spiritual likeness between the English and the American poet, especially in their unmetaphysi- cized love of outward natures, their austerity tem- pered with playful humor, and in that humanity of tone which establishes a tie of affectionate com- panionship between them and their readers. Whit- tier has done as much for the scenery of New Eng- land as Scott for that of Scotland. Many of his poems (such, for example, as "Telling the Bees"), in which description and sentiment mutually in- spire each other, are as fine as any in the language. Whittier, as many of his poems show, and as, indeed, would be inevitable, has had his moments of doubt and distrust, but never of despair. He has encountered everywhere the moral of his in- scription on a sun-dial, convinced that "there's light above me by the shade below." He, like others, has found it hard to reconcile the creed held by inheritance with the subtle logic of more modern modes of thought. As he himself has said :

" He reconciled as best he could
Old faith and fancies new."

But his days have been " bound each to each with natural piety " ; he has clung fast to what has been the wholesome and instructive kernel of all creeds ; he has found consolation in the ever-recurring miracles, whether of soul or sense, that daily con- front us, and in the expression of his own delight and wonder and gratitude for them has conveyed that solace to the minds and hearts of all his readers. One quality above all others in Whittier — his innate and unstudied Americanism — has rendered him alike acceptable to his countrymen and to his kindred beyond the sea. His first vol- ume was " Legends of New England," in prose and verse (Hartford, 1831), which has been followed by " Moll Pitcher " (1832) ; " Mogg Megone " (Boston, 1836) ; " Ballads " (1838) ; " Lays of My Home, and other Poems " (1843) ; " Miscellaneous Poems " (1844) ; the first English edition of his poetry, en- titled " Ballads, and other Poems," with an intro- duction by Elizur Wright (London, 1844); "The Stranger in Lowell " (1845); " Supernaturalism in New England " (New York' and London, 1847) ; " Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal " (Boston, 1849); "Voices of Freedom " (Philadelphia, 1849) ; a larger English collection of his " Poetical Works" (London, 1850) ; " Old Portraits and Modern Sketches" (Boston, 1850); "Songs of Labor, and other Poems," and " The Chapel of the Hermits, and other Poems " (1853) ; " A Sabbath Scene : a- Sketch of Slavery in Verse " (1853) ; " Literarv Rec- reations and Miscellanies" (1854); "The Pano- rama, and other Poems " (1856) ; " Complete Poeti- cal Works " (2 vols., 1857) ; " Home Ballads and Poems " (1860) ; " Snow-Bound " (1862) ; a new edi- tion of his " Complete Poetical Works " (1863) ; " In War Time, and other Poems " (1863) ; " National Lyrics " (1865) ; a collection of his " Prose Works " (2 vols., 1866) ; " The Tent on the Beach " (1867) J " Among the Hills " (1868) ; an illustrated edition of his "Complete Poetical Works" (1868); one corresponding in typography with the " Prose Works" (1869); a volume of his "Ballads of New England " contains sixty illustrations by various artists (1869) ; "Miriam, and other Poems" (1870); "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and other Poems" (1872) ; " Hazel Blossoms ? ' (1874) ; " Mabel Martin " (1875) ; a new collected edition of his " Poetical Works" comprising poems that he had written till the date of publication (1875); "Centennial Hymn " (1876) ; " The Vision of Echard, and other Poems " (1878) ; " The King's Missive, and other Poems " (1881) ; " Bav of Seven Islands, and other Poems" (1883); "Poems of Nature" (1885); and " St. Gregory's Guest, and Recent Poems " (1886). A final edition of his poetical and prose works has been supervised by himself, and includes his sister's poems (7 vols., 1888-9). See a " Biography," by Francis H. Underwood (Boston. 1875; new ed., 1883). and "John G. Whittier: his Life. Genius, and Writings," by W. Sloane Kennedy (1882).— His sister, Elizabeth Hnssey, b. near Haverhill, Mass., 7 Dec, 1815 ; d. in Amesbury, 3 Sept., 1864, although not a literary aspirant, was the author of poems marked by tenderness, grace, and rhythmic felicity. Several of them were included by her brother in his volume entitled " Hazel Blossoms." Like him, she was a member of the Society of Friends, and an ardent advocate of libertv. The engraving repre- sents Whittier's home, Oak Knoll, in Danvers, Mass.

WHITTINGHAM, William Rollinson, P. E. bishop, b. in New York city, 2 Dec, 1805 ; d. in