8

juvenilia, his music and style are as individual as theirs.1 His tales show some indebtedness, in subjects and general method, to Charles Brockden Brown, the English school of terror and mystery, and the German sentimentalists and romancers.2 In the arts of unity, condensation, and clearness, he was evidently helped by his intimate knowledge of French literature. And his style, in addition to Gallic finish and celerity, has, when occasion calls, a sweet melancholy, an elaborate ornateness, an impassioned and complex harmony, which remind one of The English Mail- Coach and Our Ladies of Sorrow. To his American environment, Poe certainly owed nothing but poverty and fetters. But, in spite of all, he managed to produce a few poems and tales which are perfect of their kind and greatly raised the standard of art in American literature. There is no need to dwell upon the obvious limitations of his work — its lack of mental breadth, of moral and spiritual significance, of wholesome humanity. Poe was

1 Of Annabel Lee Mr. Stedman says, "The refrain and measure . . . suggest a reversion, in the music-haunted brain of its author, to the songs and melodies that are . . . favorites of the colored race.". - Introduction to the Poems, in Stedman and Woodberry's edition of Poe, Vol. X. The germ of the metrical movement of Ulalume may perhaps be felt in the song which closes Scene 4, Act II., of Prometheus Unbound. Lady Geraldine's Courtship, by Mrs. Browning (whom Poe greatly admired), apparently suggested the metre of The Raven, and a phrase or two in it besides.

2 Stedman has pointed out certain striking resemblances between Poe's work and that of Ernst Hoffmann (1776-1822); see his Introduction to the Tales in Stedman and Woodberry's edition of Poe, Vol. I.

8 During Poe's lifetime the French mind began to recognize the affinity between his genius and its own. Baudelaire translated his tales with remarkable imaginative sympathy; and they have been widely read, especially in France and Spain.

no sun shedding its genial beams broadcast over the earth; but he was at least an arc-light shining brilliantly, and picturesquely heightening the shadows, in the Place of Tombs.

In spite of some limitations as compared with the Southern and the Middle States, New England on the whole maintained her intellectual and literary preëminence, Massachusetts in particular being prolific of poets, essayists, and writers of novels. Of the minor authors many were deservedly popular in their day; but a bird's-eye view of them is all that is possible here. RICHARD H. DANA (1787-1879), a Boston lawyer and politician, associate editor of The North American Review in 1818-1820, wrote better prose than verse. The Buccaneer (1827) is based on a finely poetical sea-superstition, but is awkwardly told; all his poems seem manufactured, and most are dull. His reviews of Brown, Irving, and others, in The North American, are sensible, and the style is clear and strong. The tales, Tom Thornton and Paul Felton (in his periodical, The Idle Man, 1821-1822), have considerable power, although the didacticism of the first is too obvious and the second is a rather violent imitation of Brown. The hymns of JOHN PIERPONT (1785-1866), a Boston Unitarian clergyman and ardent abolitionist, have merit, and his Anti-Slavery Poems (1843) are hot and strong. CHARLES SPRAGUE (1791-1825), a Boston bank cashier, was a facile "occasional" poet, winning several prizes for prologues and sounding odes; one passage from his flowery oration on American Independence (1825), referring to the time when "the rank thistle nodded in the

wind," still lingers in the memories of grown-up schoolboys. A man of more native literary gift was JAMES A. HILLHOUSE (1789-1841), a retired Connecticut merchant, whose Dramas, Discourses, and Other Pieces (1839) exhibit taste and skill; Demetria in particular, a tragedy of love, jealousy, poison, and death in old Florence, although the characterization is weak, has easy blank verse and finish and purity of style, with now and then a striking phrase. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY (17911865), long resident in Hartford, by her all too numerous moral and sentimental works in verse and prose (Moral Pieces, 1815; Letters to Young Ladies, 1833; The Weeping Willow, 1847; Lays of the Heart, 1848; Whisper to a Bride, 1850; etc.), obtained the coveted title of "the American Mrs. Hemans"; she is still useful as an index to the taste of the times, which left its impress upon greater writers as well, and helps to explain some of their artistic shortcomings. JOHN NEAL (1793– 1876), a native of Maine, whose The Battle of Niagara was mentioned on an earlier page, threw himself, with like impetuosity and buoyant egotism, into journalism, literary criticism, the composition of dramas, and novelwriting; his novels (Keep Cool, 1817; Seventy-Six, 1823; Brother Jonathan, 1825; etc.) met with some success, but, like all his work, lack finish and repose, and have passed away. The works of three female novelists have pretty much shared the same fate. MARIA G. BROOKS (1795-1845), wife of a Boston merchant, in her semi-autobiographical tale, Idomen, or the Vale of Yumuri (1843), was the first American to describe successfully the climate of Cuba and the sensuous luxury of Cuban life. Her poems-Judith, Esther, and Other

Poems (1820) and Zóphiel, or the Bride of Seven (1833), the latter on the model of Moore and Southey — show the same love of sensuous beauty.1 CATHARINE M. SEDGWICK (1789-1867), for half a century principal of a young ladies' school at Stockbridge, Mass., wrote many novels, naturally of a paler hue, including A New England Tale (1822), Redwood (1824), Hope Leslie, or Early Times in the Massachusetts (1827), The Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in America2 (1835), Married or Single? (1857), and many others. The novels of LYDIA M. CHILD (1802-1880), of Massachusetts, which are also deficient in brilliancy and power, show the same trend toward subjects from American history; she was precocious, Hobomok: a Tale of Early Times, appearing in 1821, and The Rebels (describing the sacking of Governor Hutchinson's house by a mob, and the Boston Massacre) in 1822. WILLIAM WARE (1797–1852), a Massachusetts clergyman, was a prolific writer, but is best known by his historical romances, Zenobia, or the Fall of Palmyra (1838) and Aurelian, or Rome in the Third Century (1848), in the form of letters by a Roman noble. JAMES G. PERCIVAL (1795-1856), of Connecticut, had remarkable versatility, being surgeon in the army, professor of chemistry at West Point, geologist, reviser of Webster's Dictionary (he was acquainted with Sanskrit, Basque, Gallic, Norse, Danish, Swedish, and Russian), and poet. Prometheus (1820) has the Byronic gloom, but in Clio (1822-1827) and The Poetical Works (1859) Shelley is the prevailing influence. Percival's

1 Southey, whom she met in 1831, admired her poetry and gave her the name of "Maria del Occidente.'

2 Unfortunately its likeness to Waverley is only title-deep.

poetry is often brilliant with delicate color and suffused with ideal beauty; but it is wanting in concentration and unity of effect, and, like so much good verse that has failed to live, reminds one of Browning's lines:

"1

Oh, the little more, and how much it is!

And the little less, and what worlds away!

JOHN G. C. BRAINARD (1796-1828), another Connecticut poet, wrote of American scenery, history, and superstitions with considerable poetic feeling and some skill in expression. ALBERT G. GREENE (1802–1868), a Providence lawyer, still lives in the death of "Old Grimes. EMMA H. WILLARD (1787-1870), who wrote Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep; SAMUEL F. SMITH (1808-1895), author of America (1832); SARAH H. WHITMAN (1803-1878), Poe's friend and defender, and a graceful versifier; GEORGE LUNT (1803-1885), who wrote light lyrics and pleasant nature poems; FRANCES S. OSGOOD (1811-1850), another of Poe's friends and a poetess of the prettily sentimental type; ALBERT PIKE (1809-1891), whose once well-known Hymns to the Gods (1829, 1830, 1845) have much rhetorical ability; EPES SARGENT (1813-1880), author of several novels and plays, but remembered now only by A Life on the Ocean Wave (in Songs of the Sea, 1847); and Longfellow's brother SAMUEL LONGFELLOW (1819-1892), a Unitarian clergyman, whose hymns and other religious poems are of singular purity and calm — can all receive but this passing glance. SYLVESTER JUDD (1813-1853), a Unita

1 It would be inexcusable not to record gratefully, in passing, that Mr. Greene was the beginner of the Harris collection of American Poetry, which has been simply invaluable in the preparation of this book.