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UPON the opposite shores of the Atlantic a branch of our literature is flourishing in green and vigorous youth. We subjoin a brief view of American writers and their works, following the plan which has been adopted in the foregoing chapter.

POETS.

WILLIAM CULLEN Bryant, who divides the crown of American poetry with Longfellow, was born in 1794, at Cummington in Massachusetts. At first a lawyer, he afterwards devoted himself to journalism. His poem called Thanatopsis (a view of death) is full of Wordsworth's clear and pensive beauty of expression. The Ages-Lines to a Waterfowl-Green River-The Yellow Violet --and The Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood, are among his finest poems.

LYDIA HUNTLY SIGOURNEY, born in 1791, at Norwich in Connecticut, is the Mrs. Hemans of American poetry. As Miss Huntly she appeared before the public in 1815. Four years

later she married a merchant of Hartford. The delicate pathos

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of The Dying Infant, The Emigrant Mother, and To-morrow, is worthy of all praise. Pocahontas is her most elaborate poem. Mrs. Sigourney died in 1865.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, born in 1807, at Portland in Maine, has been since 1835 Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres in Harvard College, Cambridge. He first appeared as a poet in 1840, when he published Voices of the Night. The study of European literature, especially that of Germany, has had a powerful influence upon his mind. Tennyson is the English writer whom he most resembles. prose, are as follows:

His chief works, verse and

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Many translations, from Spanish, German, Swedish, Danish, and Anglo-Saxon, attest the linguistic power and poetic skill of this favourite author. On this side of the Atlantic Longfellow and Washington Irving are as well known as Tennyson and Goldsmith.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, born in 1817 at Portland, has written poetry and prose with grace and lightness. There is something of Leigh Hunt about his pen. He was the editor of the New York Mirror. Some of his Scriptural pieces, such as The Leper, The Daughter of Jairus, and The Shunamite Mother, are very beautiful. Melanie and Lord Ivon and his Daughter afford good specimens of his romantic style. But such sweet, natural lyrics as Better Moments, and Lines to a City Pigeon, surpass his more laboured works. In prose he produced various clever, readable, gossipy books,—Pencillings by the Way-Inklings of Adventure-Loiterings of Travel, &c. Willis died in 1867.

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EDGAR ALLAN POE, author of that exquisite piece of mystery and music, The Raven, was born in 1811 at Baltimore. Annabel Lee, a tender lament for his dead wife, is one of the sweetest lyrics in the language. His prose tales are full of wild and absorbing interest. Reckless intemperance brought his short life to a close in 1849.

Supplementary List.

JOHN PIERPONT.—(1785)-Litchfield, Connecticut-Airs of Palestine; Lyrics. RICHARD DANA.-(1787)-Cambridge, Massachusetts-The Buccaneer; Thoughts on the Soul; also noted as an Essayist.

CHARLES SPRAGUE.-(1791)-Boston-a bank cashier-Curiosity; The Brothers;
The Family Meeting.

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL.—(1785)-Kensington, Connecticut-Lyric Poems.
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.- (1795) - Guilford, Connecticut - Fanny; Alnwick
Castle; Marco Bozzaris.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.-(1819)-Boston-author of many serious poems (Rhæcus, Prometheus, &c.), but better known for the Papers of Hosca Biglow, abounding in Yankee fun and shrewd sarcasm.

Southey gave great praise to Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven, by MARIA BROOKS. CHARLES HOFFMAN, author of The Vigil of Faith; and JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, a Quaker poet, may be added to this list.

HISTORIANS.

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, born in 1796, at Salem in Massachusetts, is the chief of American historians. An accident at college-the throwing of a crust-deprived him almost wholly of one eyc. Thus situated, he began a career of literary toil which resulted in the production of four great historical works,-The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, The Conquest of Mexico, The Conquest of Peru, and The History of Philip II.,-all of which have been remarkably successful. The sight of his single eye failing, he was for several years unable to read. He died of a paralytic stroke in 1859.

GEORGE BANCROFT, born in 1800, at Worcester in Massachusetts, is the author of the principal existing History of the United States. He was for three years (1846-49), Minister for the States at the British Court.

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A

GEORGE TICKNOR, born in 1791 at Boston, preceded the poet Longfellow in the chair of Modern Literature at Harvard. History of Spanish Literature from his pen ranks, for learning, sound criticism, and literary merit, with the very highest works of its class.

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY has won a high place among historians by his Dutch Republic and United Netherlands, on the latter of which he is at present engaged. He excels in vivid and pictorial description.

Supplementary List.

JOHN WINTHROP.-(1587-1649)-one of the Pilgrim Fathers-Governor of Massachusetts-Diary of Events in that colony down to 1644.

COTTON MATHER. —(1663–1728)—a Puritan minister at Boston — Magnalia
Christi Americana, an Ecclesiastical History of New England.
JARED SPARKS.-(1794)-editor of the Library of American Biography—
author of a Life of Washington, and an edition of Franklin's Works.
RICHARD HILDRETH.-(1807)-Deerfield, Massachusetts-History of the United
States; Japan as it Was and Is..

Among various local histories, containing much valuable material, we may name Maine, by WILLIAMSON; Virginia, by CAMPBELL; Georgia, by STEVENS; Kentucky, by MANN BUTLER; and the Indian Tribes, by M'KENNEY and HALL.

WRITERS OF FICTION.

WASHINGTON IRVING, born in 1783 at New York, was the scion of an old Orkney family. His father was a merchant. The literary career of this Goldsmith of the States began in 1807, the year after his admission to the bar, by contributions to Salmagundi, a humorous serial of short life. Then came that queer, delightful burlesque of old Dutch and Swedish colonist life, called The History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. The management of a branch of Irving Brothers, in Liverpool, being confided to him, he crossed the Atlantic for the second time in 1815. But the house failed, and the young merchant turned author by profession. It was up-hill work at first; but Scott having pronounced a most favourable opinion upon The Sketch-book, which was sub

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mitted to him, the road to fame and fortune was opened at once to Geoffrey Crayon, Gent"., as the author styled himself.

A list of Washington Irving's works is subjoined :

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1807-8
1809

1819-20

1822

1824

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1828

1829

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1831

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1836

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Whatever his subject-an English manor-house, with bright fires and Christmas snow-a drowsy Dutch farm-steading in Sleepy Hollow-a moonlit court in the Alhambra―the great Italian sailor -the sweet-souled Irish author-the simply noble American general

-we are charmed by the poetic graces of his fancy and the liquid music of his style. For several years he resided at Madrid, collecting materials for his Spanish works. In 1830, while in England, he received one of two gold medals conferred by George the Fourth for historical eminence, Hallam receiving the other. His later life was spent at a pleasant seat-Sunnyside, by the Hudson. There he died in November 1859.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, born in 1789, at Burlington in New Jersey, entered, after six years of naval life, upon his brilliant career as a writer of fiction. Residing on the borders of Otsego Lake, a district thick with game and then uncleared, he wrote his first novel, Precaution. In two walks he has been eminently successful-Indian novels and Naval novels. Among the former, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, and The Deer

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