1660-1860

BY

HENRIETTA CHRISTIAN WRIGHT

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1909
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I PAGE

THE EARLY LITERATURE, 1

CHAPTER II

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON--1780-1851, 14

CHAPTER III

WASHINGTON IRVING--1783-1859, 28

CHAPTER IV

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER--1789-1851, 51

CHAPTER V

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT--1794-1878, 69

CHAPTER VI

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT--1796-1859, 82

CHAPTER VII

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER--1807-1892, 96

CHAPTER VIII

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE--1804-1864, 108

CHAPTER IX

GEORGE BANCROFT--1800-1891, 123

CHAPTER X

EDGAR ALLAN POE--1809-1849, 137

CHAPTER XI

RALPH WALDO EMERSON--1803-1882, 149

CHAPTER XII

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW--1807-1882, 156

CHAPTER XIII

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY--1814-1877, 174

CHAPTER XIV

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE--1811-1896, 188

CHAPTER XV

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL--1819-1892, 203

CHAPTER XVI

FRANCIS PARKMAN--1823-1893, 219

CHAPTER XVII

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES--1809-1894, 234

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY LITERATURE

One Sunday morning, about the year 1661, a group of Indians was
gathered around a noble-looking man, listening to a story he was
reading. It was summer and the day was beautiful, and the little
Indian children who sat listening were so interested that not even the
thought of their favorite haunts by brookside or meadow could tempt
them from the spot. The story was about the life of Christ and his
mission to the world, and the children had heard it many times,
but to-day it seemed new to them because it was read in their own
language, which had never been printed before. This was the Mohegan
tongue, which was spoken in different dialects by the Indians
generally throughout Massachusetts; and although it had been used
for hundreds of years by the tribes in that part of the country
its appearance on paper was as strange to them as if it had been a
language of which they knew not a single word. It was just as strange
to them, in fact, as if they had heard one of their war cries or love
songs set to music, or had seen a