WHISTLER-WHITE. 



769 



nensis), and by putting its near relative, the whippoor- 

 will, back into the old European genus Caprimulgus, 

 or with the goat-suckers proper. The name "Poor- 

 will" is given to several Western North American 

 species of Xyctidromus and Pkalmioptilus. The whip- 

 poorwill takes its name from its loud and plaintive 

 nocturnal cry. Country people consider it a bird of ill 

 omen, portending death, and especially the death of 

 young children. Its noiseless flight, strictly nocturnal 

 nabita, an J its loud cry are doubtless the causes of the 

 dread with which the ignorant rustics regard it. The 

 mother-bird lays her eggs generally on a stump or on 

 the bare ground, and makes little or no nest. The 

 bird is not often seen near by. Occasionally the bird 

 may be seen carrying one of its own eggs or one of its 

 unfledged young in its huge mouth. The novelist 

 Cooper calls this bird by the name "Wish -ton-wish," 

 which is not an unapt imitation of its call ; but that 

 name properly belongs to the prairie-dog, being its 

 name in the language of the Usage Indians. 



(C. W. G.) 



WHISTLER, JAMES ABBOTT McNEiu,, artist, was 

 born at I/owell, Mass., in 1834, and educated at West 

 Point. For two years he was a pupil of Charles 

 Gabriel Gleyre in Paris, and in 1863 settled in Lon- 

 don. His peculiar and original theories on art have 

 been the subject of much criticism, but he is an artist 

 of strong originality and undoubtedly great talent. In 

 some of his paintings he has succeeded in producing 

 extraordinary and striking effects with but few and 

 quite subdued colors. Among his more important 

 works are White Girl, Gold Girl, Blue Girl, portraits 

 of his mother and Thomas Carlyle, Prineessc des Pays 

 de la Porcelaine, and At the Piano. To many of his 

 Liter paintings he has given names defining more 

 closely his color-experiments, such as Nocturnes in 

 Blue and Silver, Blue and < Jold. Blue and Green, etc. ; 

 Harmonies in Brown and Black, in Gray and Green ; 

 Arrangements in Black, in (J ray and Green, in Gray 

 and Black, etc. He holds high rank as an etcher, and 

 has executed series of plates on several European 

 cities. (F. L. w.) 



WHITE, ANDREW DICKSON, educator, was born 

 in Cortiandt co., N. Y., Nov. 7, 1832, and in childhood 

 was taken to Syracuse, N. Y. He graduated at Yale 

 College in IS.");;, having been while an undergraduate an 

 editorof Yale Literan/ Magazine. l\c then went to 

 Europe and for a time was an attache of the U. S. 

 Legation at St. Petersburg. He also studied at the 

 University of Berlin and a year after his return to 

 America in ISMtwOMM professor of history and Kng- 

 !ish literature in the 1'niveisity of Michigan. He re- 

 signed in 1862 and in 1X6:! he was elected to the 

 State_ Senate of New York where he at once took a 

 prominent part in legislation relating to education. He 

 introduced bills codifying the school laws and making 

 a new system of normal schools, and especially aided 

 Ezra Cornell, in organizing the Cornell University (<?. 

 v.). He was then induced to accept the presidency of 

 this institution in 1867, and visited Europe to obtain 

 for it the necessary apparatus. In 1871 he was oneof 

 the commissioners sent by Pres. Grant to Santo Do- 

 uiingo and assisted in preparing the report. In the 

 same year he presided over the Republican State Con- 

 vention of New York. In 1879 he was sent as U. S. 

 minister to Germany, and on his return in 1881 

 resumed his duties as president of Cornell University. 

 President White has published Lectures on Media-ral 

 and Miatrrn I lift/try (1861). several pam ph lets and lec- 

 tures relating to Cornell University, including one on 

 the Co-Eilitentiim < if the Sexes (1871); Warfare of 

 Si-i, ,><> (1X76) ; The New Germany (1882). 



WIM'1'H. KHIIAKD GHANT (1 822-85). critic, philolo- 

 git. and Sbalupotrew scholar. WHS descended from one 

 of the tir-t settlers of Cambridge, Mass., and was born 

 in New York city. May _:!. 1 822. After graduating at 

 the Unwenilyof New York, 1830. he. studied medi- 

 cine and law, and was admitted to the bar in 1845, but 



did very little practice. Either professionally or per- 

 sonally he was interested in the case of Bishop B. T. 

 Onderdonk, and published an Appeal from the Sen- 

 tence (1845); after the ecclesiastical trial. His news- 

 paper career began the same year as editor of the 

 short-lived AHeghanian and contributor to the Courier 

 and Enquirer, of which he was associate editor 1851- 

 58. He had been connected with Yankee Doodle in 

 1846, and later wrote for the World. His great ver- 

 satility was early and eminently shown in his writings 

 on niusic and art topics which he never entirely 

 abandoned, and on which he was an authority. In 

 1853 appeared his first volumes, one of them a Hand- 

 book of Christian Art, and his first magazine article 

 on Beethoven. The civil war turned his literary ac- 

 tivity into a new channel; Natirmal Hymns (1861), 

 was followed anonymously by The New Gospel of 

 Peace, in four parts, a pungent and effective satire on 

 Northern sympathizers with the South. A series of 

 letters to the London Spectator, from 1863 to 1867, 

 showed no less strong loyal feeling. He edited Bur- 

 ton's Bonk //Miito-(l863), the Record of the New York 

 Exhibition, and Poetry of the Civil War (1866). He 

 was for thirty years a constant contributor to Putnam t 

 Magazine, The Galaxy, and The Atlantic. In the 

 first of these he began to write upon his favorite sub- 

 ject, Shakespeare, or rather the plays, for of their 

 author he professed the lowest opinion ever put forth. 

 Sliakspere Scliolar appeared 1853. A variorum edi- 

 tion of the plays in 12 vols. (1857-65) included a me- 

 moir and essay separately published in 18(i5. In the 

 same category belong his Authorship of the Three Part* 

 of Henry VI. (185'.)). and in his last days Studies of 

 SkaJctpcn (1886). previously printed in the Atlantic 

 under the more vigorous title of The Anatomizing of 

 William Shakspere. These essays are models of vigor 

 and suggest iveness, though their extreme position re- 

 pels the sympathy of most readers. White pushes 

 the " nn nonsense theory" to all lengths, and berates 

 unmercifully the German and other philosophizes, 

 who insist on judging the man by his writings, and 

 finding a human being with a great soul behind so 

 much immortal poetry. His own view, however it 

 may seem to tit with some of the facts, ignores others, 

 and is less probable as w^ll as less creditable to human 

 nature. According to White, the man and his genius 

 were apart and out of harmony : the man used his 

 genius blindly and basely, caring nothing for what he 

 wrote, reckless of fame anil literary values, aiming 

 only to fill his theatre and grow rich. Barely stated, 

 this theory defeats itself and leaves the Sonnets un- 

 accounted for; but White urged it with great bold- 

 ness, tenacity, force, and plausibility, and his essays 

 as well as his editorial labors on the text have an im- 

 portant place in Shakspearean literature. The same 

 dogmatic and pugnacious positiveness, with hc same 

 industry, ability, and wide reading, appear in his 

 philological books, Words and their Uses (1870; 3d 

 ed., revised, 1880) and Every Day English (1879). In 

 a field where every point is hotly and rancorously con- 

 tested, White is thoroughly at home; had he lived a 

 few centuries earlier he would have been equally zeal- 

 ous as a theologian. In his later years he was much 

 abroad. His England Withmit and Within (1881), 

 like most of his books, was a reprint of magazine arti- 

 cles ; E. P. Whipple considered it the best account of 

 the mother country since those of Emerson and Haw- 

 thorne. He attempted the international novel with 

 less success in Adventures of Sir Ij;/on Bruce, in Ame- 

 rica (1867) and The Fate of Mansfield Humphrey 

 (1884). Mr. White is entitled to a high place in 

 American literature ; but his great ability and exten- 

 sive product have not met adequate popular apprecia- 

 tion, though his record as a magazmist has scarcelj 

 been excelled. He had the virtues and some of the 

 vices of a special pleader : he has been accused of 

 hard egotism, narrowness, unfairness to opponents ; 

 but he was patient in investigation, honest in his 



