Whittier
JOHN GREENLEAF, an American poet, born in East Haverhill, Mass., in 1807. His childhood was spent on the farm, with few comforts and an amount of physical work that impaired his health. He had no schooling beyond a period of little more than a year in the academy at Haverhill. He had access to few books.
When he was fourteen, the village teacher brought a volume of Burns to the Whittier house, and read the poems of the Scottish plowboy to a lad whose life was closely similar. At eighteen he wrote a poem which was published in William Lloyd Garrison's paper and led to a life- WHITTIER long friendship. About a hundred of his poems appeared in the local newspaper in 1827-1828. Meantime he earned a little money from his trade, shoemaking, and by teaching in a country school. In 1828 he secured a position in Boston on the "American Manufacturer," and showed by some papers that he wrote his sense of the dignity of labor and of the way in which men were being exploited in industry. After a few months he became editor of the Haverhill "Gazette," cha ing six months later to the Hartford came identified with Garrison's anti- setts legislature, but since he soon bechangitics, and was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, but since he soon became identified with Garrison's antislavery propaganda his political career did not prosper.
In 1837-1838 he published two volumes Before long he gave up all editorial and Poems," that attracted wide attention. Before long he gave up all editorial and JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER political work and settled down to writpolitical work and settled down to writfrom Haverhill. His patriotic slavery poems were widely used, and are marked by simple and sincere feeling, but tic and antimarked by simple and sincere feeling, but possess a value beyond them. His was a voice as authentic as Bryant's and it possessed an accent of locality which the elder poet's lacked. In the numerous poems, frequently collected into small volumes, that he published through the remainder of his life both elements persist. In the first group saint L'Ouverture," "Expostulation," "The Virginia Slave Mother," the "Pasgroup belong "Tous- WHITTINGTON bod," in which he attacked Webster for toral Letter," and, in later years, "Ichabod," in which he attacked Webster for his seventh of March speech (1850), the second belongs a group of ballads, "Barbara Frietchie," "Laus Deo." In the second belongs a group of ballads, "Songs of Labor," "Home Ballads," such idyls as "Maud Muller" and "Telling the Bees," and the immortal "Snow Bound" (1866). His fame grew slowly; not until the appearance of the last named poem did his work bring him any appreing throughout his life identified with a ciable income. He traveled little, remainsmall part of Massachusetts soil, but ciable income. He traveled little, remainfrom it seeing a life that he translated small part of Massachusetts soil, but into songs that will not die. His last years were full of honor. He became ture. When he died, September in his eighty-fifth year, Holmes was the identified with the group that made the years were full of honor. He became into songs that will not die. His last only one of the New England group who "Atlantic" a power in American literaremained to write a memorial stanza. ber 7, 1892, Whittier's themes fall into four main classes: Poems dealing with slavery and national questions; nature poems, of which some are based on direct observation of the life about him while others, somewhat more artificial in style, are idyls of a pastoral type; a group expressive of simple and direct religious experience, the fruit of his Quaker faith, some of them hymns of high quality; and, reng lastly, ballads that are not literary experience, the fruit of his Quaker faith, low wrote, but which give the ballad erary imispirit very accurately. In some of these poems, notably the political and propagandist work, we are moved by the intensity of his feeling about the evils he saw in American life and politics; in others, the nature group and the poems of religious experience, we find quietness and restraint. Yet all of them spring from the direct simplicity of his nature, "Ichabod" as fully as "Ma and restraint. Yet all of them spring of religious experience, we find quietness others, the nature group and the poems " Maud Muller" and stand Webster or his purposes; he saw songs of labor and rural life. only what he regarded as compromise with evil; his passionate intensity springs from the same sources as the forms. In "Barefoot Boy" he gets new with evil; his passionate intensity only what he regarded as compromise Whittier interests us for his variety songs of labor and rural life. Whittier interests us for his variety whatever he does he individualizes. He nets; he used few of the traditional has few literary allusions; his diction is homely, even inexact at times. He retate Burns. His work was his own, a precious strand in the weaving of an American poetry. minds us of Burns, but he does not imitate Burns. His work was his own, a minds us of Burns, but he does not imi- homely, even inexact at times. He rehas few literary allusions; his diction is WHITWORTH GUM England, about 1358; youngest son of Sir William Whittington. His father dying, Richard set out for London at 13 to push his fortune, and apprenticed himself to Sir John Fitz-Warren, a prosperous mercer, whose daughter he afterward married. He was a member of the Mercers Company in 1392, the year after an alderman and sheriff. In 1397 he was chosen mayor of London to fill the place of Adam Bamme who had died in his year of office, again in 1406, member of Parliament for the city in 1416, and in 1419 for the third time mayor.
He was knighted by Henry V., and died in the spring of 1423, and by his will rebuilt Newgate and St. Michael's Church, connecting also a college and an almshouse with it, while he also restored St. Bartholomew's Hospital, gave a library to Grey Friars, and provided drinking fountains. The popular cat story attributed to him is not well authenticated.