442 



LITERATUKE AND LITERAEY PROGRESS IN 1871. 



of themes, running through a wide range of 

 sentiment and style, and showing throughout 

 a mingled strength and tenderness, a vigor of 

 imagination and of utterance, chastened by a 

 controlling regard to the requirements of art. 

 Their reception by the public has been warm- 

 ly appreciative. Mr. J. J. Piatt has been 

 steadily growing in the public regard, as a 

 poet, and his " Landmarks, and Other Poems " 

 confirms and enhances his reputation. A new 

 candidate for recognition among our poets is 

 Emma Lazarus, whose " Admetus, and Other 

 Poems " gives substantial support to her claims. 

 It has had no dazzling success. The impres- 

 sion has been any thing but sensational. But 

 it may be safely assumed, if she is not too 

 impatient to win her meed of praise, that a 

 more significant appreciation awaits her. 



Mr. John 0. Sargent's translation of " The 

 Last Knight " of " Anastasius Grim " (Count 

 von Auersperg) deserves mention for the skill 

 he has shown as " a metre ballad-monger." 

 The ballads are vivid in expression and musi- 

 cal, though in parts the strain seems a little 

 monotonous. After a silence of thirty years, 

 Mr. William Ellery Channing appears with a 

 volume entitled " The Wanderer, and Other 

 Poems. 1 ' With much to interest a thoughtful 

 reader, one especially whose thoughts are in 

 sympathy with his, Mr. Channing's verse falls 

 short of imparting the full satisfaction looked 

 for in the reading of poetry. A sad interest 

 attaches to the Poems and Memoir of William 

 H, Burleigh, a genuine poet of the secondary 

 order, who expressed in song the impulses and 

 aspirations of a generous spirit. "Poems," 

 by Celia Thaxter, have elements of durable, 

 not to say permanent, worth ; and as much per- 

 haps may be said of the poems of William Al- 

 len Butler, though their merits are so very 

 different. "Beautiful Snow, and Other Poems," 

 by J. W. Watson, recalls the memory of a lit- 

 erary controversy that absurdly exaggerated 

 the importance of the subject. The poem, the 

 authorship of which was claimed by three 

 persons, is one that on its own merits alone 

 would have been forgotten before this time. 

 " The Boston Dip, and^Other Poems," was one 

 of the publications by which Frederick W. Lor- 

 iug gave promise of a brilliant career that was 

 tragically cut short. 



Of poetic sensations the first place is un- 

 doubtedly due to the "Songs of the Sierras," 

 by Joachin Miller. His honor in his own 

 country was imperilled by the exaggerated 

 praise he received in England, particularly 

 from that class of critics who are inclined to 

 refuse the name of "American" to any litera- 

 ture that is not a " declaration of indepen- 

 dence " of all the laws of literary art in Eng- 

 lish assuming that the peculiarities of Amer- 

 ican landscape, our gigantic natural objects, 

 and the romance of aboriginal legend, ought 

 to give birth to some quite new and unprece- 

 dented literary development. Mr. Miller's 

 poems, with their flavor of frontier life, its 



" dialect," and rough freedom, were taken as 

 indications that he was one of the original or 

 aboriginal poets they were in search of, one 

 possibly worthy to follow in the wake of Walt 

 Whitman. An examination of them discloses 

 underneath this drapery a genuine but undis- 

 ciplined genius, with a little crudeness of style 

 and some trick of imitation, but having power 

 and good promise. Mr. John Hay's " Pike 

 County Ballads " includes the " dialect poems " 

 that have done so much for his popularity, and 

 others less noted but quite as worthy of note. 

 With all their quaint humor and pathos, they 

 would be none the worse, on the score of ar- 

 tistic effectiveness, for a greater degree of re- 

 serve in picturing rough subjects. Of Bret 

 Harte's "East and West Poems," there are 

 some that will add to his reputation, and some 

 that were apparently put in with them to 

 make a book. A finely-illustrated edition of 

 " The Heathen Chinee " attests the hold it has 

 on the public. Mr. Charles Godfrey Leland 

 has worked the Breitmann vein a little more, 

 but is understood to have made his collection 

 "complete." It was full time. Walt Whit- 

 man recited before the American Institute, 

 and has published, a piece entitled "After 

 All, Not to Create Only," regarded by the 

 initiated as a good article of " Whitmanese." 

 Not all nursery-rhymes are poetry, but the 

 poetic element is revealed in " Little Folk 

 Songs," by Alexina B. White ; such of them 

 as rank with nonsense-verses are good non- 

 sense, which it requires genius to make. Of a 

 higher class, i. e., for minds of not quite so 

 tender age, and of equal merit, are the " Pic- 

 ture Poems" of Marian Douglas. Of several 

 volumes it must suffice to record the titles : 



Poems of Lucretia Maria Davidson. New edition. 

 Illustrated. 



Poems by Lucy Hamilton Hooper. 



Poems by Alameda Evans Macdonald. 



Poems hy Llewelyn G. Thomas. 



Poems by A. Winans. 



Poems ot Progress. By Lizzie Doten. 



Poems by Mrs. Ernma M. Bell. 



Poems by Mrs. Julia C. K. Dorr. 



The Suitors. By Eacine. Translated by Irving 

 Browne. 



Verses. By "William Lconhard Gaffe. 



The Moneyless Man and Other Poems. By Henry 

 T. Stanton. 



Meleagros. The New Calvary. Tragedies. By 

 Laughton Osborne. 



Nebraska Legends and Poems. By Orsamus 

 Charles Dake. 



Yo Semite. By Jean Bruce Washburn. 



Free and Independent Translation of the First and 

 Fourth Books of Virgil's ^Eneid. (Humorous.) 



Legends of the White Hills, and Other Poems. 

 By Mrs. V. G. Eamsey. 



Southern Verges. By "W". II. Holcombe, M. D. 



Christmas is Coming, and Other Poems. By Mrs. 

 L. M. Morehead. 



French Love Songs. Selected and translated by 

 Henry Curwen. 



The Baby's Things : A Story in Verse for Christ- 

 mas Eve. Bv Edward Abbott. 



Short Poems for Short People. By Edgar Fawcett. 



FICTION. The demand for prose fiction is 

 largely supplied by reprints of English novels, 



