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More recent still has been the death of a man whose verse ranks with that of either Stedman or Aldrich--Richard Watson Gilder. Some of his lyrics are very beautiful, but they appeal to the intellect rather than to the heart. Perhaps for this reason, as well as for a certain lack of substance and virility, his verse has never had a wide appeal.

Two men whose names have become household words because of their delightful verses for and about children are Eugene Field and James Whitcomb Riley. Field is the greater of the two, for he possessed a depth of feeling and insight which is lacking in Riley. Few lyrics have been more widely popular than his "Little Boy Blue" and "Dutch Lullaby"; while Riley's "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man" are equally well known.

Alice and Phoebe Cary are remembered for a few simply-written lyrics; Julia Ward Howe's "Battle-Hymn of the Republic" lives as the worthiest piece of verse evoked by the Civil War; and Joaquin Miller is known for a certain rude power in song; but none of them is of sufficient importance to demand extended study.

It will be noted that, among all the poets who have been mentioned here, not one was distinctively of the South. Poe's youth was spent in Richmond, but he was in no sense Southern. Indeed, the South has only three names to offer of even minor importance--Sidney Lanier, Henry Timrod, and Paul Hamilton Hayne. None of these men produced anything of the first order, and much of their verse is marred by amateurishness and want of finish--the result, in the first place, of defective training, and, in the second place, of an incapacity for taking pains, of a habit which relied too much on "inspiration" and too little on intellectual effort.

For verse, to be perfect, must be polished like a diamond, slowly and carefully, until every facet sparkles. This means that the right word or phrase must be searched for until it is found. Perhaps you have read Mr. Barrie's inimitable story "Sentimental Tommy," and you will remember how Tommy failed to write the prize essay because he couldn't think of the right word, and would be satisfied with no other. Well, that is the spirit. Somebody has said that "easy writing makes hard reading," and this is especially true of poetry. Inspiration doesn't extend to technic--that must be acquired, like any art, with infinite pains.

Of the three poets, Lanier, Timrod, and Hayne, Lanier was by far the greatest, and has even become, in a small way, the centre of a cult; but his voice, while often pure and sweet, lacks the strength needed to carry it down the ages. He is like a little brook making beautiful some meadow or strip of woodland; but only mighty rivers reach the ocean. Lanier is memorable not so much for his work as for the gallant fight he made against the consumption which he had contracted as the result of exposure in the Confederate army during the Civil War. The war also played a disastrous part in the lives of both Hayne and Timrod, for it impoverished both of them, and did much to hasten the latter's death.

Timrod, too, rose occasionally to noble utterance, but his voice is fainter and his talent more slender than Lanier's. His life was a painful one, marred by poverty and disease, and he died at the age of thirty-eight. Hayne's work is even less important, for he did not, like Timrod and Lanier, touch an occasional height of inspired utterance. His name is cherished in his native state of South Carolina, and in Georgia, where his last years were spent; but his poems are little read elsewhere.

Timrod and Hayne were both born at Charleston, South Carolina, as was a third poet and novelist, who, in his day, loomed far larger than either of them, but who is now almost forgotten, except by students of American literature--William Gilmore Simms. Few American writers have produced so much--eighteen volumes of verse, three dramas, thirty-five novels and volumes of short stories, and about as many more books of history, biography and miscellany--and none, of like prominence in his day, has dropped more completely out of sight. In common with the other Southern writers we have mentioned, Simms lacked self-restraint and the power of self-criticism.

Genius has been defined as the capacity for taking pains; and perhaps it is because Southern writers have lacked this capacity that none of them has proved to be a genius. Elbert Hubbard says that Simms "courted oblivion--and won her" by returning to the South after having achieved some success in the North; but it is doubtful if this had anything to do with it. The truth is that Simms's work has lost its appeal because of its inherent defects, and there is no chance that its popularity will ever be regained. And yet, while his verse is negligible--although he always thought himself a greater poet than novelist--some of his tales of the Carolinas and the Southwest possess a rude power and interest deserving of a better fate. Certainly Simms seems to have been the best imaginative writer the antebellum South produced.

American imaginative literature to-day resembles a lofty plateau rather than a mountain range. It shows a high level of achievement, but no mighty peaks. Novelists and poets alike have learned how to use their tools; they work with conviction--but in clay rather than in marble. In other words, they work without what we call inspiration; they have talent, but not genius. This is, perhaps, partly the fault of the age, which has come to place so high a value upon literary form that the quality of the material is often lost sight of. Let us hope that some day a genius will arise who will be great enough to disregard form and to strike out his own path across the domain of letters.

Meanwhile, it is safe to advise boys and girls to spend their time over the old things rather than over the new ones. There is so much good literature in the world that there is really no excuse for reading bad, and the latest novel will not give half the solid entertainment to be got from scores of the older ones. One of the most valuable and delightful things in the world is the power to appreciate good literature. To have worthy "friends on the shelf," in the shape of great books, is to insure oneself against loneliness and ennui.

SUMMARY

HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL. Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 1809; professor of anatomy and physiology, Harvard Medical School, 1847-82; published "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," 1858; "Elsie Venner," 1861; "Songs in Many Keys," 1861; and other collections of poems and essays; died at Cambridge, October 7, 1894.

POE, EDGAR ALLAN. Born at Boston, January 19, 1809; entered University of Virginia, 1826; ran away from home, 1827; published "Tamerlane and Other Poems, by a Bostonian," 1827; enlisted in the army as Edgar A. Perry, rising to rank of sergeant-major, 1829; entered West Point, July 1, 1830; dismissed, March 6, 1831; married Virginia Clemm, 1835, who died in 1847; published "Poems," 1831; "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," 1840; died at Baltimore, October 7, 1849.

WHITMAN, WALT OR WALTER. Born at West Hills, Long Island, May 31, 1819; a printer, carpenter, and journalist in early life; volunteered as army nurse, 1861; seized with hospital malaria, 1864; held government position at Washington, 1864-73; disabled by paralysis and removed to Camden, New Jersey, where he died, March 26, 1892. "Leaves of Grass," published originally in 1855, was many times revised, a final edition appearing in 1892.

TAYLOR, BAYARD. Born at Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1825; apprenticed to a printer, 1842; travelled on foot through Europe, 1844-46; in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria, 1851-52; in India, China, and Japan, 1852-53; secretary of legation at St. Petersburg, 1862-63; minister to Berlin, 1878; died at Berlin, December 19, 1878. He published collections of poems and travel letters.

RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB. Born at Greenfield, Indiana, 1853; entered journalism at Indianapolis, 1873; wrote first verses, 1875; first book of verse, "The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Leven More Poems," published in 1883; numerous volumes since then.

LANIER, SIDNEY. Born at Macon, Georgia, February 3, 1842; served in Confederate Army, and suffered exposure which resulted in consumption; studied and practised law till 1873; then decided to devote life to music and poetry; played first flute in the Peabody Symphony Orchestra at Baltimore; lecturer on English literature at Johns Hopkins University, 1879-81; complete poems published 1881; died at Lynn, North Carolina, September 7, 1881.

SIMMS, WILLIAM GILMORE. Born at Charleston, South Carolina, April 17, 1806; admitted to bar, 1827, but abandoned law for literature and journalism; first poems published 1827; resided at Hingham, Massachusetts, 1832-33, where longest poem, "Atalantis," was written; first novel, "Martin Faber," published 1833, and followed by many others; returned to South Carolina, 1833, and died at Charleston, June 11, 1870.

PAINTERS

If background and tradition are needed for literature, they are even more needed for art, and it is curiously worth noting that the background and traditions of England did not serve for her child across the sea. In both literature and art, so far as vital and significant achievement is concerned, the young nation had to find itself, and, starting from a rude and rough beginning, work its way upward of its own strength. Perhaps in no other way may the youth of America be so completely realized as by the thought that all of real importance in both literature and art which she can boast has been produced within the past ninety years--little more than the three score years and ten which the Psalmist assigned as the span of a single life.

We do not mean to say that European influence is not plainly to be traced in both our art and literature. There is a family resemblance, so to speak, as between a child and its parents, and yet the child has an individuality of its own. In literature, Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Whitman are distinctively American; and, as we shall find, so are our masters of painting and sculpture.

American art begins with John Singleton Copley. There had been daubers before him, as there were after, but Copley was the first man born in America who produced paintings which the world still contemplates with pleasure. Copley was born in Boston in 1737, his father dying shortly afterwards, and his mother supporting herself by keeping a tobacco shop. About 1746 she married again, most fortunately for her son, for her second husband was Peter Pelham, a mezzotint engraver of considerable merit, who gave the boy lessons in drawing. He proved an apt and precocious pupil, and by the time he had reached seventeen had executed a number of portraits.

His reputation steadily increased, and his income from his work was so satisfactory that he hesitated to try his fortunes in the larger field of London. Finally, in 1774, he sailed for England, and in the next year sent for his family to join him there. The opening of the Revolution persuaded him to stay in England, as there would be no demand for his work in America in so tumultuous a time. In London his talents brought him ample patronage, his income enabled him to live the stately and dignified life he loved, so that, when the Revolution ended, there seemed no reason why he should abandon it for the crudities of Boston. He therefore continued in London until the end of his life, which came in 1815.

Copley was a laborious and painstaking craftsman, setting down what he saw upon canvas with uncompromising sincerity. He worked very slowly and many stories are told of how he tried the patience of his sitters. The result was a series of portraits which preserve the very spirit of the age--serious, self-reliant and capable, pompous and lacking humor. His later work has an atmosphere and repose which his early work lacks, but it is less important to America. His early portraits, which hang on the walls of so many Boston homes, and which Oliver Wendell Holmes called the titles of nobility of the old Boston families, are priceless documents of history.

Copley was an artist from choice rather than necessity; he followed painting because it assured him a good livelihood, and he was a patient and painstaking craftsman. His life was serene and happy; he was without the tribulations, as he seems to have been without the enthusiasms of the great artist. Not so with his most famous contemporary, Benjamin West, whose life was filled to overflowing with the contrast and picturesqueness which Copley's lacked.

West was born in 1738 at a little Pennsylvania frontier settlement. His parents were Quakers, and to the rigor and simplicity of frontier life were added those of that sect. But even these handicaps could not turn the boy aside from his vocation, for he was a born painter, if there ever was one. At the age of six he tried to draw, with red and black ink, a likeness of a baby he had been set to watch; a year later, a party of friendly Indians, amused by some sketches of birds and leaves he showed them, taught him how to prepare the red and yellow colors which they used on their ornaments. His mother furnished some indigo, brushes were secured by clipping the family cat--no doubt greatly to its disgust--and with these crude materials he set to work.

His success won him the present of a box of paints from a relative in Philadelphia. With that treasure the boy lived and slept, and his mother, finally discovering that he was running away from school, found him in the garret with a picture before him which she refused to let him finish lest he should spoil it. That painting was preserved to be exhibited sixty-six years later.

The boy's talent was so evident, and his determination to be a painter so fixed, that his parents finally overcame their scruples against an occupation which they considered vain and useless, and sent him to Philadelphia. There he lived as frugally as possible, saving his money for a trip to Italy, and finally, at the age of twenty-two, set sail for Europe.

His success there was immediate. He gained friends in the most influential circles, spent three years in study in Italy, and going to London in 1764, received so many commissions that he decided to live there permanently. He wrote home for his father to join him, and to bring with him a Miss Shewell, to whom West was betrothed. He also wrote to the young lady, stating that his father would sail at a certain time, and asking her to join him. The letter fell into the hands of Miss Shewell's brother, who objected to West for some reason, and who promptly locked the girl in her room. Three friends of West's concluded that this outrage upon true love was not to be endured, smuggled a rope-ladder to her, and got her out of the house and safely on board the vessel. These three friends were Benjamin Franklin, Francis Hopkinson and William White, the latter the first Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, and the exploit was one which they were always proud to remember. Miss Shewell reached London safely and the lovers were happily married.

West was, perhaps, more notable as a man than as an artist, for his fame as a painter has steadily declined. His greatest service to art was the example he set of painting historical groups in the costume of the period instead of in the vestments of the early Romans, as had been the custom. This innovation was made by him in his picture of the death of General Wolfe, and created no little disturbance. His friends, including Reynolds, protested against such a desecration of tradition; even the King questioned him, and West replied that the painter should be bound by truth as well as the historian, and to represent a group of English soldiers in the year 1758 as dressed in classic costume was absurd. After the picture was completed, Reynolds was the first to declare that West had won, and that his picture would occasion a revolution in art--as, indeed, it did.

It is difficult to understand the habit of thought which insisted on clothing great men in garments they could never by any possibility have worn, yet it persisted until a comparatively late day. The most famous example in this country is Greenough's statue of Washington, just outside the Capitol. One looks at it with a certain sense of shock, for the Father of His Country is sitting half-naked, in a great arm chair, with some drapery over his legs, and a fold hanging over one shoulder. We shall have occasion in the next chapter to speak of it and of its maker.

Another of West's services to art was the wholehearted way in which he extended a helping hand to any who needed it. He was always willing to give such instruction as he could, and among his pupils were at least four men who added not a little to American art--Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, John Trumbull, and Thomas Sully.

Peale was born in Maryland in 1741, and was, among other things, a saddler, a coach-maker, a clock-maker and a silversmith. He finally decided to add painting to his other accomplishments, so he secured some painting materials and a book of instructions and set to work. In 1770, a number of gentlemen of Annapolis furnished him with enough money to go to England, a loan which he promised to repay with pictures upon his return. West received him kindly, and when Peale's money gave out, as it soon did, welcomed him into his own house. Peale remained in London for four years, returning to America in time to join Washington as a captain of volunteers, and to take part in the battles of Trenton and Germantown.

After the war he continued painting, but, in 1801, his mind, always alert for new experiences, was led away in a strange direction. The bones of a mammoth were discovered in Ulster County, New York, and Peale secured possession of them, had them taken to Philadelphia, and started a museum. It rapidly increased in size, for all sorts of curiosities poured in upon him, and he began a series of lectures on natural history, which, whether learned or not, proved so interesting that large and distinguished audiences gathered to hear him. In 1805, he founded the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the oldest and most flourishing institution of the kind in the country. He lived to a hale old age, never having known sickness, and dying as the result of incautious exposure. Like West, his life is more interesting than his work, for while he painted fairly good portraits, they were the work rather of a skilled craftsman than of an artist.

How he got there is not certainly known, but get there he did, without money or friends, or much hope of making either, and for three years lived a precarious life, earning a little money, borrowing what he could, twice imprisoned for debt, and with it all so gay and brilliant and talented that those he wronged most loved him most. Finally, he was introduced to Benjamin West, and found in him an invaluable friend and patron. For nearly four years, Stuart worked as West's student and assistant, steadily improving in drawing, developing a technique of astonishing merit, and, more than that, one that was all his own.

His portraits soon attracted attention, and at the end of a few years, he was earning a large income. But he squandered it so recklessly that he was finally forced to flee to Ireland to escape his creditors. They pursued him, threw him into prison, and the legend is that he painted most of the Irish aristocracy in his cell in the Dublin jail.

At last, in 1792, he returned to America, animated by a desire to paint a portrait of Washington. Arrangements for a sitting were made, but it is related that Stuart, although he had painted many famous men and was at ease in most society, found himself strangely embarrassed in Washington's presence. The President was kindly and courteous, but the portrait was a failure. He tried again, and produced the portrait which remains to this day the accepted likeness of the First American. You will find it as the frontispiece to "Men of Action," and it is worth examining closely, for it is an example of art rarely surpassed, as well as a remarkable portrait of our most remarkable citizen.

The anecdotes which are told of him are innumerable, and most of them have to do with his hot temper, which grew hotter and hotter as his years increased and he became more and more a public character. One day, a loving husband, whose wife Stuart had put on canvas in an unusually uncompromising way, complained that the portrait did not do her justice.

"What an infernal business is this of a portrait painter," Stuart cried, at last, his patience giving way. "You bring him a potato and expect him to paint you a peach!"

But look at his portrait at the beginning of this chapter, and you will see a witty and kindly old gentleman, as well as an irascible one.

John Trumbull was a student of West's at the same time that Stuart was. He was a year younger, and was a son of that Jonathan Trumbull, afterwards governor of Connecticut, whose title of Brother Jonathan, given him by Washington, became afterwards a sort of national nickname. He was an infant prodigy, graduating from Harvard at an age when most boys were entering, and afterwards going to Boston to take lessons from Copley. The outbreak of the Revolution stopped his studies; he enlisted in the army, won rapid promotion, and finally resigned in a huff because he thought his commission as colonel incorrectly dated.

In 1780, he sailed for France, on his way to London, met Benjamin Franklin in Paris and from him secured a letter of introduction to Benjamin West, who welcomed him with his unfailing cordiality; but he had scarcely commenced his studies when he was arrested and thrown into prison. The reason was the arrest and execution at New York of Major Andr?, who was captured with Benedict Arnold's treasonable correspondence hidden in his boot, and who was hanged as a spy. Knowing that Trumbull had been an officer in the American army, and anxious to avenge Andr?'s death, the King ordered his arrest, but West interceded for him and secured his release several weeks later.

Warned that England was unsafe for him, Trumbull returned to America and remained there until after the close of the Revolution. The beginning of 1784 saw him again in London, at work on his two famous paintings, "The Battle of Bunker Hill" and "The Death of General Montgomery," and from that time until his death he was occupied almost exclusively with the painting of pictures illustrating events in American history--"The Surrender of Cornwallis," "The Battle of Princeton," "The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton," to mention only three. In 1816 he received a commission to paint four of the eight commemorative pictures in the Capitol at Washington, and completed the last one eight years later, this being his last important work.

Trumbull is in no respect to be compared with Gilbert Stuart, but his work was done with a painstaking accuracy which makes it valuable as a historical document. For the personages of his pictures he painted a great number of miniatures from life, which, in many cases, are the only surviving presentments of some of the most prominent men of the time.

After Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully was by far the greatest of the men who studied in West's studio. Stuart aside, there was no American painter of the day to equal him. He was born in England in 1783, but was brought to this country by his parents at the age of nine. The Sullys were actors of some talent and secured an engagement at Charleston, South Carolina, and there the boy was placed first in school, and then in the office of an insurance broker. He spent so much time making sketches that his employer decided he was destined for art and not for business, and secured another clerk.

Young Sully thoroughly agreed with this and started out to be an artist. He had no money, nor means of earning any, but he managed to secure some desultory instruction, and this, added to his native talent, enabled him to begin to paint portraits for which uncritical persons were willing to pay. But it was a hard road, and none was more conscious of his deficiencies than himself. He knew that he needed training, and finally started for England with a purse of four hundred dollars in his pocket, which had been subscribed by friends, who were each to be repaid by a copy of an old master.

Arrived at London, Sully at once got himself introduced to Benjamin West, who received him "like a father," admitted him to his studio, and aided him in many ways. He remained there, painting by day, drawing by night, studying anatomy in every spare moment, and living on bread and potatoes and water in order to make his money last as long as possible. At the end of nine months it was gone, and he was forced to return to America.

But those nine months of study had given him just what he needed, and his talent soon gained recognition. Orders poured in upon him at good prices; and though his prosperity afterwards dwindled somewhat, he never again experienced the pangs of poverty. He made Philadelphia his home, and for nearly half a century occupied a house on Chestnut Street which had been built for him by Stephen Girard. His work is in every way worthy of respect--firm and serious and rich with a warm and mellow color.

Benjamin West had many other pupils--indeed, his studio was a sort of incubator for American artists--but none of them won any permanent fame. One, Washington Allston, achieved considerable contemporary reputation, but it seems to have resulted more from his own winning personality than from his work. He possessed a charm which fairly dazzled all who met him, notably Coleridge and Washington Irving. His smaller canvasses, graceful figures or heads, to which he attached little importance, are more admired to-day than his more ambitious ones.

Another pupil was John Vanderlyn, of Dutch stock, as his name shows, a prot?g? of Aaron Burr, and the painter of the best known portrait of his daughter, Theodosia, as well as of Burr himself. When Burr, an outcast in fortune and men's eyes, fled to Paris, Vanderlyn, who had made some reputation there, was able to repay, to some extent, the kindness which Burr had shown him. His work shows care and serious thought, but his last years were embittered by the indifference of the public, and he died in want.

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