along the base of the cliff, ascended to the guide's cottage, and received, I presume, a certificate of their achievement, with three verses of sublime poetry on the back.

My contemplations were often interrupted by strangers who came down from Forsyth's to take their first view of the falls. A short, ruddy, middle-aged gentleman, fresh from Old England, peeped over the rock, and evinced his approbation by a broad grin. His spouse, a very robust lady, afforded a sweet example of maternal solicitude, being so intent on the safety of her little boy that she did not even glance at Niagara. As for the child, he gave himself wholly to the enjoyment of a stick of candy. Another traveller, a native American, and no rare character among us, produced a volume of Captain Hall's tour, and labored earnestly to adjust Niagara to the captain's description, departing, at last, without one new idea or sensation of his own. The next comer was provided, not with a printed book, but with a blank sheet of foolscap, from top to bottom of which, by means of an ever-pointed pencil, the cataract was made to thunder. In a little talk which we had together, he awarded his approbation to the general view, but censured the position of Goat Island, observing that it should have been thrown farther to the right, so as to widen the American falls, and contract those of the Horseshoe. Next appeared two traders of Michigan, who declared, that, upon the whole, the sight was worth looking at; there certainly was an immense water-power here; but that, after all, they would go twice as far to see the noble stone-works of Lockport, where the Grand Canal is locked down a descent of sixty feet. They were succeeded by a young fellow, in a homespun cotton dress, with a staff in his

hand, and a pack over his shoulders. He advanced close to the edge of the rock, where his attention, at first wavering among the different components of the scene, finally became fixed in the angle of the Horseshoe falls, which is, indeed, the central point of interest. His whole soul seemed to go forth and be transported thither, till the staff slipped from his relaxed down down grasp, and falling down

upon the fragment of the Table Rock.

struck

In this manner I spent some hours, watching the varied impression, made by the cataract, on those who disturbed me, and returning to unwearied contemplation, when left alone. At length my time came to depart. There is a grassy footpath through the woods, along the summit of the bank, to a point whence a causeway, hewn in the side of the precipice, goes winding down to the Ferry, about half a mile below the Table Rock. The sun was near setting, when I emerged from the shadow of the trees, and began the descent. The indirectness of my downward road continually changed the point of view, and showed me, in rich and repeated succession, now, the whitening rapids and majestic leap of the main river, which appeared more deeply massive as the light departed; now, the lovelier picture, yet still sublime, of Goat Island, with its rocks and grove, and the lesser falls, tumbling over the right bank of the St. Lawrence, like a tributary stream; now, the long vista of the river, as it eddied and whirled between the cliffs, to pass through Ontario toward the sea, and everywhere to be wondered at, for this one unrivalled scene. The golden sunshine tinged the sheet of the American cascade, and painted on its heaving spray the broken semicircle of a rainbow, heaven's own beauty crown

ing earth's sublimity. My steps were slow, and I paused long at every turn of the descent, as one lin gers and pauses who discerns a brighter and brightening excellence in what he must soon behold no more. The solitude of the old wilderness now reigned over the whole vicinity of the falls. My enjoyment became the more rapturous, because no poet shared it, nor wretch devoid of poetry profaned it; but the spot 30 famous through the world was all my own!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, of Quaker birth in Puritan surroundings, was born at the homestead near Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807. Until his eighteenth year he lived at home, working upon the farm and in the little shoemaker's shop which nearly every farm then had as a resource in the otherwise idle hours of winter. The manual, homely labor upon which he was employed was in part the foundation of that deep interest which the poet never has ceased to take in the toil and plain fortunes of the people. Throughout his poetry runs this golden thread of sympathy with honorable labor and enforced poverty, and many poems are directly inspired by it. While at work with his father he sent poems to the Haverhill Gazette, and that he was not in subjection to his work is very evident by the fact that he translated it and similar occupations into Songs of Labor. He had two years' academic training, and in 1829 became editor in Boston of the American Manufacturer, a paper published in the interest of the tariff. In 1831 he published his Legends of New England, prose sketches in a department of literature which has always had strong claims upon his interest. No American writer, unless Irving be excepted, has done so much to throw a graceful veil of poetry and legend over the country of his daily life. Essex County, in Massachusetts, and the beaches lying between Newburyport and Portsmouth blossom with flowers of Whittier's planting. He has made rare use of

the homely stories which he had heard in his childhood, and learned afterward from familiar intercourse with country people, and he has himself used invention delicately and in harmony with the spirit of the New England coast. Although of a body of men who in earlier days had been persecuted by the Puritans of New England, his generous mind has not failed to detect all the good that was in the stern creed and life of the persecutors, and to bring it forward into the light of his poetry.

In 1836 he published Mogg Megone, a poem which stood first in the collected edition of his poems issued in 1857, and was admitted there with some reluctance, apparently, by the author. In that and the Bridal of Pennacook he draws his material from the relation held between the Indians and the settlers. His sympathy was always with the persecuted and oppressed, and while historically he found an object of pity and self-reproach in the Indian, his profoundest compassion and most stirring indignation were called out by African slavery. From the earliest he was upon the side of the abolition party. Year after year poems fell from his pen in which with all the eloquence of his nature he sought to enlist his countrymen upon the side of emancipation and freedom. It is not too much to say that in the slow development of public sentiment Whittier's steady song was one of the most powerful advocates that the slave had, all the more powerful that it was free from malignity or unjust accusation.

Whittier's poems have been issued in a number of small volumes, and collected into single larger volumes. Besides those already indicated, there are a number which owe their origin to his tender regard for domestic life and the simple experience of the men and women about him. Of these Snow-Bound is the most memorable. Then his fondness for a story has led him to use the ballad form in many cases, and Mabel Martin is one of a number, in which the narrative is blended with a fine and strong charity. The catholic mind of this writer and his instinct for discovering the pure