his sect, (we do not know if Mr. Whittier still remains within its pale,) our poet has taken a warm interest in the great moal questions of the day, especially abolition of slavery, and of capital punishment. He is (judging from his writings) an earnest, strong-souled man, and a genuine patriot; the poet of reform rather than of romance.

Yet much of his verse we think cannot live. His early imitations of Scott in narrative, and his latest songs of labor, which appear mechanical and cold, compared with Barry Cornwall's Weaver's Song, (the palpable model of Whittier's attempts,) or the songs of Burns. Gallagher's Laborer, in this department of poetry for the people, (where Elliott is the foremost bard of the present day,) strikes us as superior to anything of Whittier's in the same way.

The list of Quaker writers is short. Besides those we have mentioned, whose writings made a part of the current popular literature, we may add John Neal, a Quaker born and bred, though, doubtless, long since read out of meeting; Hannah Adams, the worthy spinster; and Mrs. Opie, if we are not mistaken, excellent in her tales for the young.

We do not comprehend under our caption much the largest proportion of Quaker writings, by members of the Society of Friends-the piles of controversy and sectarian history. The early writers and founders of Quakerism, Fox and his ablest disciple Penn, and Barclay the Apologist, were voluminous pamphleteers and ready disputants. The historian, Sewall, (a classic among the Friends, as Neal among the Puritans,) is preferred by Lamb to Southey in his Life of Wesley, an epitome of the History of Methodism. The author of Elia speaks highly of the life of Woolman. But Bancroft is abundantly sufficient for the general reader, in whose single chapter is condensed the marrow of a shelf full

of Quaker histories, by men who have not yet learned the art of historical narrative and philosophical criticism.

In the elder literature, the Quakers meet with but scurvy treatment. The scholar will recollect Tom Brown's famous sermon, and the pungent epigrams of Butler. Dr. South, in his admirable sermon on the Christian Pentecost, has expended some of the finest prose satire in the language on the Puritans, which might apply with equal force to the Quakers, particularly of that day.

The character of the Quaker has often been caricatured on the stage, where he is generally made out a quack or a hypocrite, or both. As the Quakers neither see nor write plays, this is hardly fair. Among the classic comedies, the Bold Stroke for a Wife contains the liveliest and best drawn character, Simon Pure. The songs and music of Dibdin, with the rich tenor and fine acting of Incledon, has given the opera of the Quaker, in which he performed the part of Steady, a permanent reputation.

Seriously, however, Americans should cherish the Quaker. He has founded one of our finest states, and given it a peculiar character. His spirit is seen and kept alive in our wisest reforms, and his own character is such, that if it may not always be refined into that of the polite gentleman or agreeable companion, it is, nevertheless, made of the same material, and shares, as well and as constantly, in the characters of a true patriot, a zealous friend, an honest philanthropist, and a virtuous citizen.

XXII.

POETRY FOR THE PEOPLE.

THE predominant fact in the history of the nineteenth century thus far-and there is slight probability of the fact becoming a fiction-is unquestionably the importance and elevation of the mass-the People, by distinction—the tiersetat of France, the Commons of England. This fact is no less encouraging than novel. Before the era of the French Revolution, and our own antecedent to it, the People, as such, were considered with indifference, if not contempt. They had been regarded much in the same light as the Helots of Sparta, or the servile castes of Russia and Poland. Their rights were never mooted, for they had never been declared; they were supposed to exist only through the sufferance of the superior nobility and the will of the sovereign, and their lot was to toil, to suffer, and to pay taxes. This comprised their history, which might have been written in a very concise epitome. But modern science and modern philosophy-and, let us add, the silent influence of the true republican spirit of the Gospel-gave rise to a new state of things. Respect for the claims of human nature in the abstract, and of the individual in the concrete, begat sympathy for the former and reverence for the latter. Man, as such, was admitted by his brother as a brother,

and his name and title allowed to rank higher (as our admirable Channing wrote) than King or President. Humanity, in her naked magnificence, asserted her inherent privileges, which were as openly acknowledged. Rank, riches, and royal power, lost their hold on the popular imagination, and Europe saw, at that late date, the sovereign of an ancient house treated as an usurper and punished more ignominiously than even a usurper merited. Force of character, moral energy, intellectual resources—these became wealth in that trying hour, and the weak, the bigoted and wavering, naturally fell the necessary victims of the conqueror. Yet as evil generally precedes good, so out of this chaos of tumult and crime, emerged a benefit, the bow of promise, as from an atmosphere of storms and physical convulsion. This benefit we have already mentioned, and it is this peculiar feature in the character of the age, the present position and claims of the people, that has given birth to a new and striking application of poetry to life, which may be expressed in the phrase, Poetry for the People.

In its most comprehensive sense, we might call all poetry political; for all truly inspired verse is the outpouring of the Spirit of Freedom, and the Spirit of Humanity. A similar love of freedom animates both the Poet and the Patriot, and the latter acts out, what the other in song exhorts all men to act. Music, declamation, and all the refinements, both of art and learning, flourish in the most servile communities, and under the reign of despots; only true poetry and vigorous eloquence, (worth all the rest,) decay and wilt away, uncongenial plants in such a soil. All the master-bards, and the vast majority of lesser lights, (so they burn with original lustre,) of necessity are eulogists of

freedom in the abstract, as of the Law of Right, the Law of Truth, and the reverence of the Beautiful; for, without these, what were poetry but a mere heap of fables and false devices. But that generous code of criticism which followed the trained system of the French classicality, has taught us the infinite worth of Poetry, as a mine of the highest truth and the deepest wisdom, apart from its beneficial moral tendency, and quite separate from its claims upon us as the sweetest of charmers, "most musical," though by no means "most melancholy." Of all writers, the Poets are the most moral, the most metaphysical, and we may add, the most political.

As philosophers, (for the Poet is the right popular philosopher,) they cannot avoid the propagation of free principles and liberal ideas; if only on the shallow grounds of diplomatic expediency; and this applies with greater force in a free country and an enlightened epoch. As humanitarians, (since the Poet by his vocation is a philanthropist,) the Poets feel as no other class of men can feel; for the whole circle of human necessities, from the lowest animal desires, up to the most elevated spiritual impulses, is included in their sympathies; and, those, too, of the most delicate and intelligent description. The Poet is the brother of his fellow-men and "Creation's heir," with the same fortunes and a similar destiny.

The genuine Poet, then, is a patriot; sometimes, he is a bigot, a satirist, a partizan. Personal gratitude has inclined many a man of political genius to embrace a particular side; the prospect of future fame, or a desire to secure present patronage, has been the motive with many for enlisting under the banners and swearing by the shibboleth of party. The Muse is, sometimes, seen in a political livery;