LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY (1791-1865) was born in Norwich, Connecticut. She was a precocious child, having written verses at the age of seven. Having been carefully educated, Miss Huntley opened a school for young ladies in 1810, and a few years afterwards published her first volume, entitled Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse. In 1819 she was married to Charles Sigourney of Hartford, and in that city she had her home for the remainder of her life. She was a prolific writer, having produced no fewer than forty-five volumes, consisting of poems, tales, biographies, and miscellanies. In the genuine religious pathos with which her poetry is inspired, she resembled Mrs. Hemans. With that there are combined delicate fancy and melodious verse. She was not a profound thinker, but she was a charming writer. Pocahontas was her most elaborate poem, and among her most pathetic pieces are The Dying Infant, The Emigrant Mother, and Innocence.

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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878), "the Wordsworth of America," was born at Cummington, Massachusetts. He began to rhyme early; and some of his poems were printed when he was only fourteen years old. He studied law and practised it for ten years. He could not, however, resist the attractions of literature, and in 1825 he went to reside in New York, and soon obtained congenial employment. In the following year he joined the staff of the Evening Post, and was connected with it, as contributor, editor, and part proprietor, till the close of his life. Bryant travelled much, both in Europe and in America, and wrote interesting accounts of his journeys but it is on his poetry that his fame chiefly rests. He occupies a place beside Longfellow in the front rank of American poets. His finest poem, in some respects the finest poem produced in the New World, is Thanatopsis, a view of death. It was written before the poet was twenty years of age, and the clear and pensive beauty of expression reminds us of Wordsworth; but it is instinctive with a profound and serene philosophy which is the poet's own. The Ages, Lines to a Waterfowl, and The Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood, are among Bryant's finest poems.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892) was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts. His father was a farmer; and the boy worked on the farm till his eighteenth year. He then resumed his schooling, and spent two hours daily at an academy. Before that he had begun to send contributions to the newspapers, both in prose and in verse. It was thus that he quick ened in himself the literary ambition; and in due course he became a journalist. From the first he was a determined enemy of slavery. He edited an anti-slavery journal; he discussed the subject in one of his earliest prose works; and his first volume of poetry--1831-was entitled Voices of Freedom. His other poems are-Songs of Labour Legends of New England, Snow Bound, Home Ballads, In War Time, and the Cen

tennial Hymn. Many of his single poems are very popular such as, Maud Müller, Skipper Ireton's Ride, and The Barefoot

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Boy. A collected edition of his early poems was published in 1850. Whittier is essentially a poet of nature. There are fewer traces of the culture of the schools, of the influence of books and literary associates, in his poetry than in that of any of his contemporaries. He is also a national poet, in the sense that his inspiration and his imagery are drawn from his own country-one might say from his own State. He was the apostle of freedom, and of the rights of labour.

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1811-1849) owes his reputation almost entirely to one poem, that exquisite piece of mystery and music, The Raven. His life is a sad story of self-indulgence and debauchery, ending in premature death. He was born at Baltimore. His parents were actors, and after their death the boy was adopted by Mr. John Allan of Richmond. Both at school and at college he showed uncommon cleverness, combined, however, with profligate habits, which led to his rustication. His debts, which Mr. Allan repudiated, forced him to leave the country; and he went to Greece during the revolution there, and afterwards to Russia. He was sent home in a state of destitution, and Mr. Allan forgave and welcomed him; but byand-by there was a new cause of quarrel, and Mr. Allan died without leaving the poet a dollar. He married his cousin, and went to New York to earn his living with his pen. He wrote a great deal, both in prose and in verse. For some months he edited the "Broadway Journal." His tales, such as the Adventures of Arthur, Gordon Pyne, and The Gold Bug, are ingeniously constructed, and are full of wild and absorbing interest, but they are deficient in human sympathy. His wife having died, he was engaged a second time; but at Baltimore he met some of his old boon companions, and having lain down in the street after drinking too much wine, he died of exposure, in 1849.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS (1817-1867) was born at Portland, Maine. He is best known to British readers by his Scriptural pieces, such as The Daughter of Jairus, and The Shunammite Mother. Some of the most highly finished of these were written while he was yet a student at Yale. He became a jour

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nalist by profession. He was the editor of the "New York Mirror," and afterwards joint-editor with Mr. G. P. Morris of "The Home Journal." Most of his prose works are reprints of articles-for example, Rural Letters, People I Have Met, Life Here and There. He spent a good deal of time in Europe, and found there material for such works as Pencillings by the Way, Loiterings of Travel, and A Summer Cruise in the MediterraHis books show genuine love of nature, and are written in a sprightly, graceful style, that has a flavour of Leigh Hunt. He also wrote in a romantic style, of which Melanie and Lord Ivon and his Daughter are good specimens. His Scriptural poems have been the most popular of his writings, though in the opinion of many, such sweet natural lyrics as Better Moments, Lines to a City Pigeon, far surpass his more elaborate writings.

nean.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891) was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts. He studied law, and was called to the bar, but did not practise, having from the first made literature his profession. Several long residences in Europe brought him, more than most of his contemporaries, under the influence of European thought and feeling; and he was sometimes twitted by his countrymen with being more an Englishman than an American. He succeeded Longfellow in the chair of Modern Languages at Harvard in 1855, and two years later he became first editor of "The Atlantic Monthly." He also edited for a time “The North American Review." His highest post was that of American Minister in London, 1880 to 1885. Lowell was one of the most versatile of writers. He was equally great as a poet, a satirist, an essayist, and a critic. His first volume of poems, A Year's Life, was published in 1841. The Vision of Sir Launfal, perhaps the most perfect as well as the most popular of his poems, appeared in 1848. In 1865 he read at Cambridge a magnificent Commemoration Ode, in honour of the sons of Harvard slain in the Civil War. The Cathedral, a poem in blank verse, written in 1869, is perhaps his highest achievement. These poems mark Lowell as a poet for poets and