HOLMES, born in 1809 and dying in 1894, was the descendant of a scholarly New England ancestry. After graduating at Harvard, he began life as a professor and practitioner in medicine; he was married in 1840, and lived all his life in Boston. He twice visited Europe, first as a young fellow of one-and-twenty, and again, after more than half a century, as a veteran of letters, known and loved in both hemispheres. Of all our writers, he is the sunniest, the wittiest, and most discursive, and one of the least uneven. Until 1857, Holmes had written nothing beyond occasional poems, excellent of their kind, but not of themselves sufficient to make a reputation. But in that year, the Atlantic Monthly was started and Holmes contributed to it a series of unique essays entitled, "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." They had the form of familiar dialogues between a group of diverse but common types in a boarding-house, upon all manner of topics. They immediately caught the fancy of all readers, and lifted Holmes to a literary altitude where he ever after remained. Two years later "Elsie Venner," his first novel, a study in heredity and in American village character, was published; it is good, but not in the same class with the best imaginative work. The same criticism must be passed on "The Guardian Angel," his second effort in fiction, which appeared in 1867. Both have so much merit that one wonders not to find them better. But they make it plain that Holmes's proper field was the discursive essay and the occasional poem; and here his fame is solid and secure. Wit rather than humor characterizes Holmes; yet he has the tenderness which usually accompanies only the latter. His mind is swift in movement, and catches remote, analogies; he brings together the near and the far, with the effect of a pleasing surprise. His thought tends to shape itself in epigram; he says more "good things"-which are not merely good, but often wise-than any of his contemporaries. The habit of his mind was discursive and independent, rather than deeply original; he had opinions on all subjects; he stated them so brightly and aptly that they often seemed new; but in truth Holmes is orthodox. His quick sympathies and excellent taste, combined with the harmony of nature which creates the synthetic attitude, make him a poet whose productions not seldom reach a high plane, as for example in "The Chambered Nautilus." He is an optimist, and a moralizer, and turns both characteristics to sound literary advantage. The comic bias of his general outlook upon life leads him to be so constantly funny and acute, that the reader is in some danger of losing the fine edge of appreciation; the writer becomes his own rival. Once in a while, however, as in "Old Ironsides," the fervor of his patriotism, or of some other high emotion, thrills him into seriousness, and then he strikes a pure and lofty note. There is something lovable in all that he has done; and no man of letters among us has been the object of more widespread personal affection than has Holmes. We return from other appreciations to the Autocrat series -for he wrote a number of books of a character similar to these first essays. The untrammeled plan of them suits his genius; he can spring here and there as chance or humor suggests, and entertain us in a hundred different ways one after another. He preaches charming lay sermons, on a score of texts at once, and unless unintermittent entertainment can be tedious, tediousness is impossible to Holmes. He opens no unknown worlds, but he makes us see the world we know better. He penetrates beneath the surface of human nature, though he falls short of creative insight. After reading him, we rise with a kindlier feeling towards men and things, and a wiser understanding of them. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadow'd main, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips, a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! CONTENTMENT. Little I ask; my wants are few; I only wish a hut of stone And close at hand is such a one, Plain food is quite enough for me; Three courses are as good as ten;If Nature can subsist on three, Thank Heaven for three. Amen! I care not much for gold or land;— I only ask that Fortune send Honors are silly toys, I know, Jewels are baubles; 'tis a sin To care for such unfruitful things;One good-sized diamond in a pin, Some, not so large, in rings, A ruby, and a pearl, or so, My dame should dress in cheap attire Some shawls of true cashmere,— Some marrowy crapes of China silk, Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. I would not have the horse I drive So fast that folks must stop and stare; An easy gait-two, forty-five Suits me; I do not care,— Perhaps, for just a single spurt, Some seconds less would do no hurt. Of pictures, I should like to own (A landscape, foreground golden dirt; Of books but few, some fifty score Of red morocco's gilded gleam, And vellum rich as country cream. Busts, cameos, gems,-such things as these, Which others often show for pride, I value for their power to please, And selfish churls deride; One Stradivarius, I confess, Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, Give grasping pomp its double share,- Thus humble let me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch, |