Life of John Greenleaf Whittier - William James Linton - Google Boeken

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CONTENTS.

"The Poet of New England'; Parkman, Stedman, and Horace

Greeley on Whittier's claims to be so regarded

The poet's genealogy; Thomas Whittier from Southampton,

England; the Whittier family, the Greenleafs, Husseys,

and Bachilers; the poet born 17th or 31st December,

The valley of the Merrimac River in Essex County, Massa-

chusetts; the towns of Haverhill, Amesbury, and New-

buryport; character of the scenery in the neighbourhood;

social standing of the Whittier family; Quaker visitors;

the old homestead; its building and description; recent

The Whittier family, and guests; Whittier's own account of his

youth and of its surroundings in his "Winter Idyll

"Snowbound; the father, mother, an Italian traveller,

Uncle Moses, Aunt Mercy, the sisters, the schoolmaster;

Harriet Livermore and her journeys to Jerusalem and the

Farm work and school; the "Barefoot Boy"; Jonathan

Plummer; introduction to the poetry of Burns; schooling;

early poem published in the Free Press; first introduction

to its editor, William Lloyd Garrison

Goes to Academy at Haverhill, in April, 1827; first literary
days; description of him at that date by Mrs. Thayer

and Mrs. Pitman; Garrison's publishing endeavours;

Whittier's newspaper work in the American Manufacturer,

Haverhill Gazette, and New England Review; Father

dies in June, 1831; "New England Legends"; "Intro-

duction" to Brainard's Poems; "Moll Pitcher " ; eulogy

Tho Abolitionist movement; Garrison's Liberator started at

the beginning of 1831; the American Anti-Slavery

Society; Convention at Philadelphia; Whittier's descrip-

tion of the members Mr. May's lecture in Haverhill;

George Thompson; Lowell's question-how a Quaker

could have got into such a hurly-burly; Whittier's reply;

his view of heroism; his admiration of Milton's last days. 61

Esteem of Whittier's fellow citizens despite his Abolitionism;

the poet as politician; appointed as representative in State

Legislature in 1835 and 1836; “Mogg Megone"; "Adams'

Letters to his Constituents"; Pamphlet from Harriet

Martineau; the Pennsylvania Freeman; the office of

the Freeman and the Pennsylvanian Anti-Slavery Hall

sacked and burned in May, 1838; Southern approval of

the outrage; attitude of the main Quaker body Whittier's

position in the Society; newspaper writing, lecturing,

and political work at Lowell in 1844; the Mexican

War; Whittier greatly opposed to it; the "Voices of

Freedom" their intensity; "Stanzas on the Liberator;

"The Pastoral Letter"; on "British Emancipation";

neither Conservatives nor Abolitionists fair critics of the

"Voices"; the fierceness of tone justified by impending

danger; the "Pine Tree"

Literary work from 1832 to 1847; "Moll Pitcher "; the New
England Magazine; its editors and contributors; list of
Whittier's contributions, and to the Democratic Review;
the "Supernaturalism of New England"; writings in the
North Star, Boston Pearl, New York Mirror, Emanci-
pator, Liberator, Haverhill Gazette; "Lays of Home"
more "Voices of Freedom"; "Cassandra Southwick "
"Memories"; suggestions of an early love; "My
Summer with Dr. Singletary"; Whittier's identification
with the Merrimac River; description of the river's course

;

and geological formation; parts of the country most

known by the poet; ballads of "St. John" and the

"Funeral Tree of the Sokokis"; wider sympathies

The National Era established in 1847; Whittier as assistant
editor; more than eighty of his poems in it between 1847
and 1859; "Uncle Tom's Cabin" appears in the National
Era in 1850; " Barclay of Ury"; "Ichabod"; scattering
of his poems; prose work in the Era; "Old Portraits";
Literary Recreations"; " Margaret Smith's Journal"

66

Editions of the poems; that of Mussey in 1849; valuable for

its notes; "Songs of Labour.". Editions of 1852, '53, '54,

and '57; Whittier's mother dies in 1857; other deaths

in the Whittier family life of poet at this time uneventful;

Explanatory notes on the poems; the "Hero'

toul"; "Calef in Boston "; the "Branded Hand

Faneuil Hall"; "To Massachusetts "; the "Pine Tree"

the "Pæan"; "Lines to a Southern Statesman";

"Leggett's Monument"; his verse never adulatory;

occasions for poems in the struggle for Kansas and Ne-

braska; "Voices of Freedom" again; the "Pass of the

Sierra ; the
"Kansas Emigrants"; the "Swan's

Marsh "; the "Burial of Barbour"; lines "to A. K.";

Mary Garvin"; "Summer by the Lakeside"; the

"Last Walk in Autumn"; " My Namesake"; Bryant,

Longfellow, Emerson, and Lowell, in the anti-slavery

movement; the bulk of the anti-slavery poetry; the

Whittier edition of 1857; the Atlantic Monthly started;

his allowance of other judgments; "Home Ballads";

John Brown; his settling in Kansas; his warfare with the pro-
slavery raiders from Missouri; the fight at Ossawatomie;
description and character; his twenty men in Kansas;
he gets possession of the armoury at Harper's Ferry, in
October, 1850, but cannot hold it; his band slain or taken
prisoners; himself a prisoner ;Whittier's expression of
sympathy checked by his principles condemning armed
action; letter to Mrs. Child; lines on John Brown's
action on his way to the gallows; the poet's attitude

ΙΟΙ

towards the war between the North and South in 1861

and 1862;/the thirtieth anniversary of the American

Anti-Slavery Society; Whittier's letter to Garrison; the

end of slavery proclaimed

Poems-not of war, but written during the war ; the war over,

he devotes himself to his art; "Snowbound, a Winter

Idyll," the most perfect of the poet's works, published in

1865; the "Tent on the Beach"; some national lyrics ;

"Laus Deo"; the "Peace Autumn"; other poems, lyrics,

and ballads; "In School Days the Pennsylvania

Pilgrim, ," with a prefatory plea for the Quakers; the

"Sisters"; "Hazel Blossoms," with poems by Elizabeth

Whittier, published in 1875; "In a Sea-Dream";

"Mabel Martin"; the "Henchman ; the "Vision of

Echard"; the "Witch of Wenham ; "Sunset on the

Bearcamp"; "In the Old South"; other poems; hymns;

"Children's Poems"; "Three Centuries of Song"; "To

Oliver Wendell Holmes" last words and last days; he

dies on the 7th of December, 1892 funeral; his legacies 140

His place as a poet; at first the preacher; some carelessnesses;
His

lack of early musical training; poetic hopes given up to

the cause of freedom; his own expression of this; yet

something gained; compared with Poe; and Wordsworth;

Telling the Bees"; his descriptive poetry characterised

by Stoddard; "A Dream of Summer"; personal poems

Stoddard's further criticism Whittier a natural balladist

the strong human element in him; "Barbara Frietchie "

"Floyd Ireson "

Criticism continued; Mr. Wasson in the Atlantic Monthly;

Whittier's Semitic appearance and character a real life;

the poet and the man one; Quakerism and Puritanism;

his devotion to Freedom the choice of a true man; his the

rare power of creating homely beauty; Stedman on the

early influences of his life; Nature learned from herself;

brief review of his life and estimate of his verse; conclusion 183

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