and her maiden sisters had a home together, and carried on extensive and successful schemes of benevolence. Not far from their home was a wild tract of country in which the people were very poor and very ignorant. Hannah and her sister philanthropists worked for the education and enlightenment of these needy people until at their annual festivals more than a thousand children met, and were entertained at the expense of their benefactors. At her death, Hannah left fifty thousand dollars to charitable institutions. It would require a volume to do justice to her life and labors.

122. Thomas Hood (1798–1845).— Humor and pathos are twin sisters. They walk hand in hand. When one shows her form, the other lies in her shadow, ready to take her place at a moment's notice. While humor plays on the lips in a smile, pathos moistens the eye with a tear. While humor dances lightly from tongue or pen, pathos sits in the heart with downcast eye, ready to assert herself as soon as a solitary moment shall give her an opportunity. "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" spring from the same mold; they are blossoms from the same root,- a tender and sensitive spirit. Such a spirit was that of Thomas Hood. He is most widely known as a humorist; but his pathos is even more exquisite than his humor. Take for instance the "Song of the Shirt," "The Bridge of Sighs," and the few lines appended to this paragraph. His humor is free from everything coarse or vulgar, and is, in a sense, refined. The few of his poems that are neither humorous nor pathetic, are fine examples of what he might have done. in loftier themes than he has usually undertaken.

123.

THE DEATH-BED.

We watched her breathing through the night,—

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seemed to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers

To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied:

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed: she had

Another morn than ours.

Alfred Tennyson (1810-1892).

Lord

Tennyson is regarded as one of the greatest poets of modern times. His style is clear; his lines are often exquisitely beautiful; yet their flow is so easy and natural as to give the impression that they fell spontaneously from his pen. This is the perfection of art,- to do the best things with no apparent effort. He wrote two dramas,"Queen Mary" and "Harold." Next to "Queen Mary," his longest, and one of the most unsatisfactory of his poems, is "The Princess." "Enoch Arden" has been much admired, both for its style and for its human interest. 66 Aylmer's Field "is less simple, but contains an important lesson. The "Idylls of the King" and other poems pertaining to the times of

King Arthur and his Table Round are among the most graceful of his productions. By some "In Memoriam " is considered Tennyson's noblest effort. It is an elegiac poem of nearly three thousand lines, written as a tribute of affection to the memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, son of the eminent historian, and the chosen friend of Tennyson in his earlier years at Cambridge. A distinctive feature of this long poem is that the interest is so well sustained throughout.

Many of his subjects are undoubtedly mythical, and the narratives are in themselves of small account; but they afford a thread on which to string gems of thought and pearls of beauty. They cultivate an esthetic taste, and serve to charm a weary hour "to soothe the restless pulse of care.". In all his writings there is a chasteness, a certain elevation of thought, a moral tone, and a human fellowship that puts the author in touch with his readers.

"His verse is the most faultless in our language, both as regards the music of its flow and the art displayed in the choice of words; but the pleasure which his poetry gives, springs largely from the cordial interest he displays in the life and pursuits of men, in his capacity for apprehending their higher and more beautiful aspirations, and in a certain pervasive purity and strength of spiritual feeling."-- International Cyclopedia.

with

124. American Poets.- Contemporary Tennyson and with one another were a number of our most distinguished American poets. Since they lived and wrote in our own day, and in our own land, they are too well known to need any extended notice: we

know them and love them, "one and all. The names of Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, and Holmes, are household words, honored and revered no less than those of Washington and Lincoln. Their poems are read and appreciated by all classes, and are equally delightful in all stages of life, from childhood to age. They are a gospel of truth, simple enough to be understood by the lowest, and worthy the contemplation of the highest. Unlike most of the great British poets, they did not live in retirement and make authorship a profession. They bore their share of burdens and responsibilities, and wrote whenever leisure moments gave them opportunity. Not a stain rests upon the character of these men, either in public or in private life, and the tone of their writings is what would be expected from such a source.

125. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878).— For considerably more than half a century Mr. Bryant was engaged in severe and almost continuous editorial labor. Even while traveling in foreign lands, he wrote letters descriptive of his journeys, instead of embracing the opportunity to cultivate his poetic genius. Yet amid all the responsibilities of his busy life, he found time to write poetry of which his country may well be proud. The evenness of his entire course is a marvel to all who study his history. He began to write poetry in childhood. At the age of thirteen he wrote on profound subjects. In his nineteenth year he wrote "Thanatopsis," one of the best of his productions. When eightytwo he wrote "The Flood of Years," also one of his best. In the sixty-four years that intervened between

the writings of these two poems, there had been no

weakening of his poetic power. His sympathies were enlarged as the years went on. The crystal clearness of his mind remained the same, but there was greater depth of human emotion. At the age of seventy he made a translation of the " Iliad," which has been ranked as the best and most attractive yet produced. His last effort was the delivering of a public address in Central Park, New York City. The address was remarkable for its eloquence, although the speaker was then in his eighty-fourth year. This wonderful continuance of undiminished mental power was due to temperate habits and daily physical exercise.

Bryant's poetry may be classed as reflective. No one has ever delineated natural scenery with greater truthfulness, but the peculiarity of Bryant's nature-studies is that he always connects them with human life. They lose none of their charm, but gain dignity, by a treatment which teaches how to read the will of the Creator in his works. The extreme gravity which characterized his. boyhood poems, was somewhat relieved in later life by a more cheerful imagination. The same vigor, the same thoughtful earnestness, remained; but there was a lighter step and a less somber garb. Bryant's poems are often less attractive to young readers than are those of some other writers; but the more they are read, the better they are liked. They always leave a good impression. There are no sudden flashes of genius; the feelings are not wrought up to an unhealthy pitch of excitement; but there is an enjoyment of a deeper and more lasting kind. The impressions return again and again, until their influence becomes permanent.