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LITERATURE AND LITERARY PROGRESS IN 1878. 



readers and of the judicious few. "The Schooi- 

 boy," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, snows the 

 mellow richness of matured power and expe- 

 rience. Less frolicsome and more given to 

 calm and tender meditation or reminiscence, 

 yet preserving the identity of his genius, which 

 is shown by numberless inimitable graces of 

 expression, Dr. Holmes is a master in the 

 poetry of society and for special occasions. 

 ile is one of the few poets of our time who 

 have complete mastery of the English heroic 

 verse, the measure of Dryden, Pope, and Gold- 

 smitha measure discredited by the endless 

 echoes of imitators, but, in the hands of a poet 

 who is at once original and well cultured, hav- 

 ing large resources of effectiveness. Mr. Joa- 

 quin Miller's " Songs of Italy" neither justify 

 the hopes of those who hailed his advent as 

 that of the long-desired, genuine, original, not 

 to say aboriginal "American poet," nor refute 

 the censures of less appreciating critics. Cul- 

 ture will not make a poet, but has a good deal 

 to do in the making of poetry such poetry as 

 has in it " the promise and potency of lite." 

 The art poetical -is the servant of genius, but 

 one whose service genius can not dispense with, 

 save to her irreparable loss. Mr. R. W. Gilder 

 has come a second time before the public. 

 " The Poet and his Master " is a volume with 

 some very good things in it, but it leaves us in 

 the same perplexity as his earlier volume pro- 

 duced, a haunting doubt how much of it is poe- 

 try and how much merely expresses a love for 

 poetry. We might possibly feel more sure if 

 the author were a trifle less so, and did not set 

 so high a value as he seems to do upon his own 

 productions, whether large or small. Mrs. 

 Louise Chandler Moulton has excited a livelier 

 interest and a more decided admiration in Eng- 

 lish critical circles than in her own country, 

 and a volume of her poems entitled " Swallow 

 Flights " has appeared in London. It has been 

 said that the opinion of intelligent foreigners 

 ought to come to us as a not unlikely premo- 

 nition of the judgment of posterity. If so, let 

 us hasten to do justice to a female poet to 

 whom less than justice (on the theory referred 

 to) has been done. Mrs. Celia Thaxter has 

 collected a volume of her recent verse which 

 she calls "Drift Weed," a name suggesting, 

 and doubtless suggested by, her love for the 

 sea, the aspects of which are to her an inex- 

 haustible resource of illustration and allusion. 

 Mr. William Winter's "Thistle Down," if it 

 does not materially raise, will certainly not 

 depress the reputation he won by previous ef- 

 forts. Mrs. Zadel B. Guslafson, in "Meg, a 

 Pastoral," has well caught the tone proper to 

 the style of poetry in which she writes. This 

 and the other poems included in her volume 

 were received with much and deserved favor. 

 Another volume of child-poetry, the unforced 

 product of spontaneous poetical invention, bears 

 the felicitous title of " Apple Blossoms." The 

 uthors, two sisters, Elaine and Dora Goodale, 

 exhibit the delightful unconsciousness of child- 



hood with unmistakable indications of genius;, 

 but whether destined to expand and grow 

 strong and productive, it would be now pre- 

 mature to venture an opinion. Besides these, 

 a number of new candidates for public recog- 

 nition as poets have come forward with pro- 

 ductions having various degrees of merit, but 

 not of such decided excellence as to require 

 mention in this general survey. 



Of collections of poetry, two or three should 

 be referred to. Mr. Longfellow has completed 

 his poetic circumnavigation of the globe, and 

 his latest " Poems of Places " relate to his own 

 country. Some excellent anthologies of Eng- 

 lish and American verse, selected with care 

 from the best authors, and some more extend- 

 ed series of complete or of select works of the 

 principal poets that have adorned the English 

 language, have done their part to encourage a 

 taste for choice reading and the cultivation of 

 a pure taste. 



HISTORY AND BIOGEAPHY. A second volume 

 of " A Popular History of the United States," 

 ascribed to the joint authorship of William Cul- 

 len Bryant and Sidney Howard Gay essen- 

 tially composed, no doubt, by Mr. Gay, with 

 the counsel and revision of his venerable asso- 

 ciate advances in so leisurely a fashion that 

 the four volumes originally proposed will hard- 

 ly suffice to bring the narrative down to the 

 era of the civil war. It will be a valuable his- 

 tory, no doubt, but is in danger of becoming 

 too bulky to be really popular. That epithet 

 may be applied with entire propriety to a " His- 

 tory of our Country," by Abby S. Richardson, in 

 one volume. " The Early American Spirit and 

 the Genesis of it ; The Declaration of Indepen- 

 dence and the Effects of it," two historical dis- 

 courses by Dr. Richard S. Storrs, at once throw 

 a clear light on our historic past and draw 

 thence a true patriotic inspiration. A much- 

 needed work, and, if completed as it has been 

 begun, a work so well done that it will not 

 soon need doing again or modifying except by 

 continuing it to a later period, is Professor 

 Moses Coit Tyler's " History of American Lit- 

 erature," of which two volumes have appeared, 

 devoted to the ante-revolutionary period. The 

 intellectual life of our colonial ancestry is in- 

 terpreted with an insight and just appreciation 

 not often brought to the exposition of literary 

 history. A work of more limited scope, but 

 within its range very well executed, is "A 

 Century of American Literature," by Professor 

 Henry A. Beers. " Four Years with General 

 Lee," by Walter H. Taylor, is an interesting con- 

 tribution to the history of our sad civil struggle 

 and of the "lost cause." " The Conquest of 

 New Mexico and California," by P. St. George 

 Cooke, recalls into memory a war of less propor- 

 tions, but one that became the occasion of con- 

 troversies out of which arose as by a fatal ne- 

 cessity the attempted disruption of the Union. 

 The "Memoirs of John Brown," by F. C. San- 

 born, narrates one of the more immediate pre- 

 ludes of the civil war, and fixes some of the mat 



