JOHN G. WHITTIER.

THIS distinguished poet of freedom and humanity is of a Quaker family, and was born near Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the year 1808. Until he was eighteen years of age, he remained at home, passing his time in the district school, in assisting his father on the farm, and writing occasional verses for the "Haverhill Gazette." After spending two years in the Academy at Haverhill, he went to Boston in 1828, and became editor of the "American Manufacturer," a newspaper devoted to the interest of a protective tariff. In 1830, he became editor of the "New England Weekly Review," published at Hartford, and remained connected with it for about two years; during which period he published a volume of poems and prose sketches, entitled "Legends of New England." He then returned home, and spent two or three years on his farm, during which time he was elected by the town of Haverhill a representative to the legislature of his native State. This was as creditable to the electors as the elected, as his strong anti-slavery feelings were then well known. In 1836, he was elected Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and defended its principles as editor of the "Pennsylvania Freeman," a weekly paper published in Philadelphia. About this time appeared his longest poem, "Mogg Megone," an Indian story, which takes its name from a leader among the Saco Indians, in the bloody war of 1677.

In

In 1840, Mr. Whittier removed to Amesbury, Massachusetts, where he still resides, and where all his late publications have been written. In 1845, appeared "The Stranger in Lowell," a series of sketches of scenery and character, which the varied character of the population of that famed manufacturing town might naturally suggest. 1847, he became corresponding editor of the "National Era," published at Washington, and gave to that paper no small share of the celebrity which it has ever enjoyed of being one of the very ablest papers in the country. The next year a very elegant edition of all his poems, including his “Voices of Freedom," was published by Mussey, of Boston. In 1849, appeared his "Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal," written in the antique style by the fictitious fair journalist, who visits New England in 1678, and writes letters to a gentleman in England, to whom she is to be married, descriptive of the manners

It is of the octavo size, and elegantly illustrated by Billings.

and influences of the times. In delicate and happy description this work is full of beauties, preserving most truthfully the style and habits of thought of the time when it pretends to have been written. In 1850, appeared his volume "Old Portraits and Modern Sketches," a series of prose essays on Bunyan, Baxter, &c.; and in the same year, "Songs of Labor and other Poems," in which he dignifies and renders interesting the mechanic arts by the associations of history and fancy. Since that time he has published “Lays of Home,” and "The Chapel of the Hermits and other Poems;" while, during the whole period since 1847, he has almost every week enriched the columns of the "National Era" with some felicitous prose essay, or some soulstirring poem that, like the blast of a trumpet, denounces the crime and curse of slavery.

It is hardly possible to speak of Mr. Whittier in too strong terms, both as a man and as a writer. At a time when to be an antislavery man was to be maligned, abused, and ostracized from society, Whittier stood forth the bold antagonist of the sin, and poured forth his indignation in strains of exalted Christian patriotism, which, if not now fully appreciated, will in after times give him rank as one of the very first of American poets.

But there is another side of the picture, scarcely less beautiful to behold. Though boldness and energy are Whittier's leading characteristics, and though many of his poems breathe a defiant tone to the oppressor, and show a hatred of slavery as intense, if possible, as it deserves, yet both his prose works and his poetry exhibit passages that for tenderness, grace, and beauty, are not exceeded by those of any other American writer. He thus unites qualities seemingly opposite in a heart every pulsation of which beats warmly for humanity.

PALESTINE.

Blest land of Judea! thrice hallow'd of song,
Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng;
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee.

With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore,
Where pilgrim and prophet have linger'd before;
With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God.

Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen,
With the mountains around and the valleys between ;
There rested the shepherds of Judah, and there
The song of the angels rose sweet on the air.

And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw
Their shadows at noon on the ruins below;
But where are the sisters who hasten'd to greet
The lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet?

I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod;

I stand where they stood with the chosen of GoD

Where His blessings were heard and his lessons were taught,
Where the blind were restored and the healing was wrought.

O, here with His flock the sad Wanderer came-
These hills HE toil'd over in grief, are the same-

The founts where He drank by the way-side still flow,

And the same airs are blowing which breath'd on his brow!

And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet,

But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet;
For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone,
And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone.

But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode
Of humanity clothed in the brightness of God?

Were my spirit but tuned from the outward and dim,
It could gaze, even now, on the presence of him!

Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when,
In love and in meekness, He moved among men;

And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the sea,
In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me!

And what if my feet may not tread where He stood,
Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood,
Nor my eyes see the cross which he bow'd him to bear,
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer.

Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near
To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here;
And the voice of thy love is the same even now,

As at Bethany's tomb, or on Olivet's brow.

O, the outward hath gone!-but, in glory and power,
The Spirit surviveth the things of an hour;
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame
On the heart's secret altar is burning the same!

CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.

[In the Report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in Charleston, S. C., on the 4th of 9th month, 1835, published in the "Courier" of that city, it is stated: "The CLERGY of all denominations attended in a body, LENDING THEIR SANCTIONS TO THE PROCEEDINGS, and adding by their presence to the impressive character of the scene."]

Just God and these are they

Who minister at thine altar, God of Right!

Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay
On Israel's Ark of light!

What! preach, and kidnap men?
Give thanks-and rob Thy own afflicted poor?
Talk of Thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the captive's door?

What! servants of Thy own

Merciful Son, who came to seek and save
The homeless and the outcast-fettering down
The tasked and plundered slave!

Pilate and Herod, friends!

Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine!
Just God and holy is that church, which lends
Strength to the spoiler, Thine?

Paid hypocrites, who turn

Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book

Of those high words of truth which search and burn In warning and rebuke;

Feed fat, ye locusts, feed!

And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord
That, from the toiling bondman's utter need,
Ye pile your own full board.

How long, O Lord! how long

Shall such a priesthood barter truth away,
And, in Thy name, for robbery and wrong
At Thy own altars pray?

Is not Thy hand stretched forth
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite?
Shall not the living God of all the earth,
And heaven above, do right?

Woe, then, to all who grind

Their brethren of a common Father down!
To all who plunder from the immortal mind
Its bright and glorious crown!

Woe to the priesthood! woe

To those whose hire is with the price of blood—
Perverting, darkening, changing as they go,
The searching truths of God!

Their glory and their might

Shall perish; and their very names shall be
Vile before all the people, in the light

Of a world's liberty.

Oh! speed the moment on

When Wrong shall cease-and Liberty and Love,
And Truth, and Right, throughout the earth be known
As in their home above.

LEGGETT'S MONUMENT.1

"Ye build the tombs of the prophets."-HOLY WRIT.
Yes-pile the marble o'er him! It is well
That ye who mocked him in his long stern strife,
And planted in the pathway of his life
The ploughshares of your hatred hot from hell,
Who clamored down the bold reformer when
He pleaded for his captive fellow men,
Who spurned him in the market-place, and sought
Within thy walls, St. Tammany, to bind

In party chains the free and honest thought,
The angel utterance of an upright mind-
Well is it now that o'er his grave ye raise
The stony tribute of your tardy praise,
For not alone that pile shall tell to Fame

Of the brave heart beneath, but of the builders' shame!

ICHABOD 12

So fallen, so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!

The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!

'This is Wm. Leggett, who in 1829 was invited by Wm. C. Bryant as associate editor of the "Evening Post." He was an able and fearless defender of truth, and in 1835, when the meetings of the abolitionists were dispersed in New York by mobs, their houses attacked, and their furniture burned in the streets, he defended with noble zeal and signal ability the right of liberty of speech, and became the warm and earnest friend of freedom. The following lines upon his memory, written by Mr. Bryant, do credit no less to the author than to the subject:

The earth may ring, from shore to shore,
With echoes of a glorious name,
But he, whose loss our tears deplore,
Has left behind him more than fame.
For when the death-frost came to lie
On Leggett's warm and mighty heart,
And quench his bold and friendly eye,
His spirit did not all depart.

The words of fire that from his pen
Were flung upon the sacred page,

Still move, still shake the hearts of men
Amid a cold and coward age.

His love of truth, too warm, too strong
For Hope or Fear to chain or chill,

His hate of tyranny and wrong,

Burn in the breasts he kindled still.

These lines, so full of tender regret, deep grief, and touching pathos, were written when the news came of the sad course of Daniel Webster in sup