Richard Hovey. Though born in Illinois, Richard Hovey (1864-1900) belongs by training and residence to the East, and since the better part of his work was done after he became a teacher of English literature at Barnard College and Columbia University, we may place him in the New York group. He prepared himself for the ministry, but turned to newspaper work and the stage, and finally to teaching. He was the most aspiring of all our younger poets, though his achievement was cut short by an early death. He attempted to rival the greatest poets both in choice of subjects and in treatment. He wrote Greek odes, Arcadian lyrics, stirring patriotic hymns, and many occasional poems; he dared to add a new canto to Byron's "Don Juan"; he entered Tennyson's field of Arthurian legends and planned a series of nine dramatic poems, which, had he lived to complete them-though they are cast in a different form from Tennyson's Idylls of the King-might have challenged comparison with the greater poet's work. Besides publishing three successive volumes of Songs from Vagabondia (1894-1896-1900), written in collaboration with his friend Bliss Carman, the Canadian poet, and two other books of lyrio verse, Along the Trail, a Book of Lyrics (1898) and To the End of the Trail (1908), Hovey completed four of the nine dramas planned to be included under the general title Launcelot and Guenevere; a Poem in Dramas. These were "The Quest of Merlin, a Masque"; "The Marriage of Guenevere, a Tragedy"; "The Birth of Galahad, a Romantic Drama"; and "Taleisin, a Masque." A considerable part of the fifth piece, which was to be called "The Graal, a Tragedy," was left in fragmentary form along with outline sketches and fragments for the four remaining dramas. This sequence, even in its incomplete form, is undoubtedly the most notable piece of work yet done by an American in the field of Arthurian romance. As has been said, Hovey certainly deserves to be placed among "the inheritors of

unfulfilled renown." His war poems, written during the Spanish-American War, are particularly appropriate reading now that the great European War is absorbing so much attention. The following passage from "The Call of the Bugles" will illustrate Hovey's enthusiastic patriotism, and at the same time show how well parts of this poem fit recent conditions.

Over the rumbling drum and marching feet
Sound your high, sweet defiance to the air!
Great is war- -great and fair!

The terrors of his face are grand and sweet,
And to the wise, the calm of God is there.
God clothes himself in darkness as in light,

- The God of love, but still the God of might.

Nor love they least

Who strike with right good will

To vanquish ill

And fight God's battle upward from the beast.

There is perhaps a touch of "jingoism" in Hovey's war poetry, but it must be remembered that he was still a young man when he died. If he had lived he would doubtless have moved on into a higher type of philosophic and unselfish patriotism.

The song writers. New York and the Middle States have furnished a number of our most successful popular song writers. Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842) was born in Massachusetts, but he spent a large part of his life in New York as an editor. He is remembered for the sentimental ballad "The Old Oaken Bucket." John Howard Payne (1791-1852) was born in New York, but he lived a sort of nomadic life as an actor, dramatist, dramatic critic, and foreign consul, sojourning in many cities in many different lands. He is now remembered almost solely for the sincere and pathetic song "Home, Sweet Home," which was inserted as a lyric in "Clari, or The Maid of Milan," a sentimental light opera otherwise of little literary worth. Payne's best drama is his blank-verse tragedy called "Brutus, or The Fall of Tarquin." George Pope Morris (18021864) and Dr. Thomas Dunn English (1819-1902), both of Philadelphia, are remembered respectively for a single successful lyric of a simple and reminiscent or sentimental type, Morris being the author of "Woodman, Spare that Tree," and Dr. English of the well known song, "Ben Bolt." Pennsylvania may also lay claim to Stephen C. Foster (1826-1864), since he was born in Pittsburgh, though he lived most of his life in Cincinnati and is frequently thought of as a Middle Westerner. Foster had a fine sense for simple heart melodies, and several of his songs have become fixed in the American popular ear more securely than any other native song except perhaps "Home, Sweet Home." The best known of his songs are "Old Black Joe," "My Old Kentucky Home," and "Old Folks at Home."

Other minor poets. It will be impossible here to give a full discussion of the remaining New York and Middle States' poets, though there are many others that should be mentioned both for the excellency of their technique and in some cases, particularly among the more recent poets, for the freshness and modernity of their lyric notes. Among

the best known of these poets of the central section may be named the following: Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872), author of "Sheridan's Ride," "The Closing Scene," and many other longer and shorter poems; Hans Breitman, whose real name was Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903), writer of humorous ballads in a sort of broken German English, or Pennsylvania Dutch, dialect; Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903), a prolific but unequal writer of narrative and lyric verse; Alice (1820-1871) and Phoebe Cary (1824-1871), authors of many child lyrics and religious songs, "One Sweetly Solemn Thought" being the best known of the younger sister's hymns; Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909), for many years editor of The Century Magazine and author of numerous poems of a deeply religious or spiritual character; George H. Boker (1823-1890), writer of good lyrics and also the author of what has been pronounced the finest acting tragedy produced in America, "Francesca da Rimini"; Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), the widely admired young Jewish poetess; the Reverend Henry van Dyke (1852-), writer of excellent idyllic prose and polished verse; Clinton Scollard (1860-) and Frank Dempster Sherman (1860-1916), both fine technicians in their lyric verse; Josephine Preston Peabody (1874-), author of delightful child poems and a prize drama, "The Piper"; Percy Mackaye (1875-), descended from a family of famous actors in New York City, author of "The Scarecrow" and a dozen or more other successful stage plays, a number of masques and one-act plays, and also some patriotic odes and other literary lyrics of merit; Witter Bynner (1881-), author of "An Ode to Harvard," "The New World," and "Iphigenia in Tauris." Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) and Alan Seeger (1888-1916), each of whom gave up his life on the battle-fields of France, have reached a higher artistic excellence than any others of the hundreds of poets that have been inspired by the soul-stirring events of the great World War. The best of

Kilmer's pre-war poetry was published in Trees and Other Poems (1914). His most powerful and pathetic war poem is the "Prayer of a Soldier of France." By common consent Alan Seeger's "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" has been accepted as the greatest war poem produced by an American.1

THE NEW YORK AND MIDDLE ATLANTIC STATES

ESSAYISTS AND GENERAL PROSE WRITERS

The more important prose writers. The more important New York and Middle Atlantic States prose writers may be grouped in two classes, namely, the essayists and general prose stylists, and the story writers and novelists. Nathaniel Parker Willis, Bayard Taylor, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and Henry van Dyke, all of whom wrote good prose, have already been named among the poets. While dozens of additional names might be mentioned, the three writers of general prose that deserve special attention in the Middle States group are George William Curtis, Charles Dudley Warner, and John Burroughs.

George William Curtis. George William Curtis (18241892) was born in Rhode Island, but when he was fifteen he was carried to New York by his family and set to work as a clerk in a business establishment. Later he came under the influence of the transcendental movement which swept over New England, and for a time he lived at Brook Farm as one of the students or boarders. Then he took up his residence at Concord, in order to be near Emerson and some of the other noted transcendentalists there. After several years of travel abroad, during which period he wrote some good travel sketches, Curtis finally settled down to editorial work in New York City, being engaged principally on the

1The summarizing lists of minor writers with accompanying dates found here and elsewhere in this volume are not intended to be set as memory tasks for the pupils, but rather to be used by way of suggestion for further reading outside of the classroom.