EXCHANGE 
 
PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 AMERICANA GERMANICA 
 
 MONOGRAPHS DEVOTED TO THE COMPARATIVE 
 STUDY OF THE 
 
 Literary, Linguistic and Other Cultural Relations 
 
 OF 
 
 Germany and America 
 
 EDITOR 
 
 MARION DEXTER LEARNED 
 
 University of Pennsylvania 
 
 (Ste List at the End of the Book} 
 
WHITTIER S RELATION TO GERMAN 
 LIFE AND THOUGHT 
 
 A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School 
 of the University of Pennsylvania in partial fulfil 
 ment of the requirements for the Degree 
 of Doctor of Philosophy. 
 
 By 
 
 1OLA KAY EASTBURN 
 
 Ctmericana (Bermamca 
 
 NUMBER 20. 
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 1915 
 
COPYRIGHT 1915 
 
 BY 
 IOLA KAY EASTBUKN. 
 
TO MY PARENTS 
 
 338552 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 CHAPTER I. WHITTIER AND THE GERMANS IN AMERICA. . 1 1 
 
 Karl Follen 1 1 
 
 Carl Schurz 17 
 
 Governor Ritner 18 
 
 The Pennsylvania Freeman 26 
 
 Bayard Taylor 34 
 
 The Pennsylvania Pilgrim 42 
 
 Hymn of the Bunkers 55 
 
 Maud Muller 60 
 
 Cobbler Keezar s Vision 62 
 
 Barbara Frietchie 66 
 
 The Palatine 71 
 
 Baron Steuben 72 
 
 German American Translation of Whittier s 
 
 "Homestead" 73 
 
 German American Translation of "Clerical 
 
 Oppressors" 76 
 
 CHAPTER II. WHITTIER AND GERMAN THEMES 78 
 
 The Devil Legends, Faust and Goethe 79 
 
 Translation of Goethe s "Erlkonig" 87 
 
 Whittier and Romanticism 91 
 
 Paraphrase of Spitta s "Geduld" 97 
 
 To Ronge 101 
 
 Article on "Attitude of Germany to Slavery 
 
 in the United States" 102 
 
 Whittier and the German Mystics 104 
 
 Whittier and Transcendentalism 112 
 
 Luther 1 18 
 
 The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 122 
 
 Child Life 124 
 
 Max Muller 127 
 
 Freiligrath 128 
 
 The Two Elizabeths 130 
 
 (5) 
 
"S "" - 
 
 f> 
 
 6 Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 The Brown Dwarf of Riigen 132 
 
 Literary References to German Authors and 
 
 Works 135 
 
 Whittier in German Literature 145 
 
 APPENDIX 149 
 
 The Everlasting Taper 149 
 
 German Books in Whittier s Library 152 
 
 Bibliography 154 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Although Whittier had a very meagre education as a boy, 
 and spent practically all his life within a few miles of his birth 
 place, 1 yet he was a man of wide interests and wide reading; and 
 though prevented by ill health from traveling either in this 
 country or abroad, he saw and knew other lands through books 
 of travel and the letters of his friends. 
 
 His position as editor 2 of various papers, and his active inter 
 est in politics, 3 and in all questions of reform, brought him into 
 touch with the first thinkers of the day both at home and abroad. 
 
 Whittier is above all a poet of New England, of the people, 
 and of the anti-slavery movement. Although he does not know 
 the literature 4 of other countries at first hand as do Longfellow 
 and other of the New England poets, he enjoyed it as much as 
 possible through translations. When one goes through Whittier s 
 works carefully, one is surprised at the extent of his knowledge 
 and interest in all subjects. He counted amongst his friends, 
 the poet Longfellow and knew his translations ; he also knew per 
 sonally the translator Charles C. Brooks, of Salem, Mass., the 
 Rev. Thomas Tracy, of Newburyport, Mass., and other trans 
 lators, and their works. Between Bayard Taylor and our poet 
 there was a close life-long friendship. He was also in close touch 
 
 1 John Grccnleaf Whittier was born December 17, 1807, on a farm near 
 Haverhill, Essex County, Mass., and in 1836 moved with his mother and sister 
 to Amesbury, Mass. He died September 7, 1892. 
 
 2 1829, Whittier edited the American Manufacturer in Boston; 1830, the 
 Haverhill Gazette; 1830-1831, New England Review in Hartford; 1836, Essex 
 Gazette, Haverhill, Mass. ; 1838-1840, the Pennsylvania Freeman in Philadel 
 phia; 1844, the Middlesex Standard in Lowell; 1847-1860, corresponding editor 
 of the Washington National Era. Besides editing these papers, he contributed 
 to numerous other periodicals, chief among which were: Garrison s Liberator, 
 the Democratic Review of Washington and the Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 a Whittier became a member of the State Legislature of Massachusetts in 
 I ^35. His health, however, did not permit him to hold an important political 
 office and he had to decline a nomination to Congress by the Liberal Party in 
 1842. 
 
 4 Though he gained a little knowledge of French at the Haverhill Academy, 
 he did not take up German. His only attempt at using German is in an unpub 
 lished letter to James T. Fields, Amesbury, ist mo. i, 1883, "Wo ist Peter 
 Grimm? Where s the Hermits? I am sorry the book is not out, and as Toots 
 says in Dombey and Son , It s of no sort of consequence ." 
 
8 Preface 
 
 with Dr. Carl Pollen of Harvard University, and a number of 
 other German refugees, who undoubtedly brought him more or 
 less into touch with German life and thought. 
 
 Both in the library at his home in Amesbury, Mass., and in 
 his study at Oak Knoll, are many books 5 translated from the Ger 
 man and other languages ; and in many cases presentation copies 
 from the translators themselves. As many of Whittier s books 
 were given after his death to friends, and many more sold in 
 Literary Auction sales by Anderson & Co., New York, and others, 
 there were doubtless in his original library very many more books 
 of the same type. 
 
 Whittier s poems inspired by German themes are: Transla 
 tion of Erlkonig, 1840; To Ronge, 1846; The Angel of Patience, 
 1847; Tauler, 1853; Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, 1861 ; The 
 Vision of Echard, 1878; The Mystics Christmas, 1882; The Two 
 Elizabeths, 1885; The Brown Dwarf of Riigen, 1888. 
 
 German American subjects: Expostulation, 1834; To Ritner, 
 1837; To Follen, 1842; Gobbler Keezar s Vision, 1861 ; Barbara 
 Fritchie, 1863; The Palatine, 1867; The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, 
 1872 ; The Hymn of the Dunkers, 1877 ; Bayard Taylor, 1879. 
 
 He was interested also in the literature and history of other 
 countries, as his poems and prose articles on French, Italian, 
 Scandinavian and Eastern themes show. 
 
 In writing this book I have not tried to prove any strong 
 German influence upon Whittier, as this does not exist, but only 
 to show how far he was touched by it and especially his interest 
 in the Germans with whom he came in contact here at home, 
 because of their common sympathies in reform movements, and 
 especially on the anti-slavery question. 
 
 I have gone carefully over all the newspapers of which 
 Whittier was for a time editor, and those to which he contributed. 
 It was not possible to get hold of all his unpublished letters, as 
 many are in the hands of friends who consider them too per 
 sonal for publication ; but as far as possible I have consulted these 
 letters, and have published the parts which bear upon my subject. 
 
 B See Appendix for list of these books. 
 
Preface 9 
 
 I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor M. D. 
 Learned, of the University of Pennsylvania, who suggested the 
 subject to me, and whose encouragement and help have been 
 invaluable ; also to Mr. Samuel T. Pickard, of Amesbury, Mass. ; 
 Mr. John G. Moulten, Librarian of the Public Library, Haver- 
 hill, Mass. ; Mr. T. Franklin Currier, of the Harvard Library ; 
 Mr. Charles Jenkins, Germantown, Pa. ; Mr. William A. Speck, 
 of Yale University ; and to Dr. R. W. Drechsler, of the Amerika- 
 Institut, Berlin, for their kind assistance in my work. 
 
WHITTIER S RELATION 1O GERMAN 
 LIFE AND THOUGHT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 WHITTIER AND THE GERMANS IN AMERICA. 
 
 The political refugees who came to this country from Ger 
 many, became interested, naturally, in their new fatherland, in the 
 question of freedom for all men, regardless of color. It was this, 
 especially, that brought the poet of anti-slavery into close touch 
 with the liberty loving sons of Germany. 
 
 DR. KARL POLLEN. 
 
 Chief amongst these German friends of Whittier was Dr. 
 Karl Pollen of Harvard University. 
 
 Pollen and Whittier served together on committees at anti- 
 slavery conventions and were brought thus into close touch with 
 each other. 
 
 Dr. Pollen was the inspiration for two poems : Expostula 
 tion, 1834, and Pollen, 1842. Expostulation appeared first in The 
 Liberator of September 13, 1834, and was entitled Stanzas. Later 
 it was published under the title of Pollen and finally with its 
 present title. Whittier prefixed the following note 6 to the poem : 
 
 "Dr. Charles Pollen, a German patriot, who had come to 
 America for the freedom which was denied him in his native 
 land, allied himself with the abolitionists, and at a convention of 
 delegates from all the anti-slavery organizations in New England, 
 held at Boston in May, 1834, was chairman of a committee 7 to 
 prepare an address to the people of New Pngland. Toward the 
 close of the address occurred the passage which suggested these 
 lines : 
 
 6 See Poems, Camb. Ed., page 267. 
 
 7 A pamphlet, containing the address in which these words occur, was 
 published by Garrison and Knapp, Boston, 1834. Whittier s and Pollen s names 
 are signed as members of the committee. 
 
 (n) 
 
12 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 The despotism which our fathers could not bear in their 
 native country is expiring, and the sword of justice in her 
 reformed hands has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. 
 Shall the United States the free United States, which could not 
 bear the bonds of a king cradle the bondage which a king is 
 abolishing? Shall a republic be less free than a monarchy? Shall 
 we, in the vigor and buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic 
 in righteousness than a kingdom in its age? Dr. Pollens 
 Address." 
 
 This poem is one of Whittier s most passionate outbursts 
 against the system of slavery, written when he was first entering 
 upon his work in the cause of the slave. It was very popular 
 with the anti-slavery orators and recited by them with great 
 effect at their meetings. 8 The seventh stanza refers to Prussia s 
 attitude toward slavery : 
 
 "Oh, say, shall Prussia s banner be 
 A refuge for the stricken slave?" 
 
 An unpublished letter^ from Whittier, dated Haverhill, 2nd, 
 3rd mo., 1836, and written to George S. Hillard, contains the 
 following message to Dr. Follen and his wife: 
 
 "Should thee see Dr. Follen & his excellent lady soon, re 
 member me kindly to them." 
 
 The Narrative of James Williams, An American Slave, pub 
 lished 1838, by the American Anti-Slavery Society, was written 
 by Whittier anonymously in the home of Mr. John W. Hill, of 
 New York, where he was staying with Dr. Follen and a friend 
 of the latter. 
 
 A note to the preface by the author says : "The reader is 
 referred to John G. Whittier, of Amesbury, Mass., or to the fol 
 lowing gentlemen, who have heard the whole or a part of his 
 story from his own lips : Emnor Kimber, of Kimberton, Pa. ; 
 Lindley Coates, of Lancaster County, Pa. ; James Mott, of Phila- 
 
 8 S. T. Pickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. Page 142. 
 This letter is in the collection of MSS of the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 13 
 
 delphia; Lewis Tappan, Elizur Wright, Jr., Rev. Dr. Pollen and 
 James G. Birney, of New York." 
 
 This preface was signed New York, 24th of ist mo., 1838. 
 Whittier was supposed to be the author, but the fact was not 
 established until 1886. A friend wrote to him in regard to it and 
 an unpublished letter 10 contains the following reply : "I think the 
 story of my writing the life of an escaped slave James 
 Williams at Friend Hill s in Water Street, New York, is cor 
 rect. Professor Pollen of Harvard University and a friend of his, 
 an Italian patriot refugee, were with me. I remember the latter 
 drewthe slave s portrait. I think this was in the summer of 1837. I 
 was afterwards at Friend Hill s with my sister on my way from 
 Philadelphia." 
 
 Pollen s views upon The Future State were published in The 
 Christian Examiner for January, March and June, 1830. These 
 articles were the foundation of a second poem from Whittier. In 
 the head-note, 11 he says: 
 
 "On reading his (Pollen s) essay on the Future State / 
 
 "Charles Pollen, one of the noblest contributions of Germany 
 to American citizenship, was at an early age driven from his pro 
 fessorship in the University of Jena, and compelled to seek shelter 
 in Switzerland from official persecution on account of his liberal 
 opinions. He became Professor of Civil Law in the University 
 of Basle. The governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia united 
 in demanding his delivery as a political offender; and, in conse 
 quence, he left Switzerland, and came to the United States. 
 
 "At the time of the formation of the Anti-Slavery Society 
 he was a professor in Harvard University, honored for his genius, 
 learning, and estimable character. His love of liberty and hatred 
 of oppression led him to seek an interview with Garrison and 
 express his sympathy with him. Soon after, he attended a meet 
 ing of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. An able speech 
 was made by Rev. A. A. Phelps, and a letter of mine addressed 
 
 10 This letter was sold at auction by the Anderson Auction Company, New 
 York, in 1909, and bought by the Haverhill Public Library, Haverhill, Mass., 
 where the MS may now be found. 
 
 11 Cambridge edition of Whittier s Poems, page 175. 
 
14 Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 to the Secretary of the Society was read. Whereupon he rose and 
 stated that his views were in unison with those of the Society, 
 and that after hearing the speech and the letter, he was ready 
 to join it, and abide the probable consequences of such an 
 unpopular act. He lost by so doing his professorship. He was an 
 able member of the Executive Committee of the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society. He perished in the ill-fated steamer "Lexing 
 ton", which was burned on its passage from New York, January 
 13, 1840. The few writings left behind him show him to have 
 been a profound thinker of rare spiritual insight." 
 
 The poem first appeared in The Democratic Review for Sep 
 tember, 1842, without this note. 12 
 
 Whittier pays a high tribute to their friendship in these 
 verses, which remind us somewhat of Tennyson s "In Memoriam". 
 
 ist stanza: 
 
 "Friend of my soul ! as with moist eye 
 
 I look up from this page of thine, 
 Is it a dream that thou art nigh, 
 Thy mild face gazing into mine?" 
 
 loth stanza: 
 
 "Thou livest Pollen ! not in vain 
 
 Hath thy fine spirit meekly borne 
 The burden of Life s cross of pain, 
 
 And the thorned crown of suffering worn." 
 
 1 5th stanza: 
 
 " Tis something to a heart like mine 
 
 To think of thee as living yet ; 
 To feel that such a light as thine 
 Could not in utter darkness set." 
 
 In an unpublished letter 13 to his friend Thomas Tracy, 6th 
 mo., 1 2th, 1842, Whittier says of Follen : "How vividly the narra 
 tive calls him back to me ! I bless God that I knew that man." 
 
 12 In 1888, Whittier supervised the preparation of a collective edition of 
 his writing s, which was published in seven volumes, under the title of the 
 Riverside Edition. For this edition, the poet furnished Introductions and 
 Notes. 
 
 13 This letter was sold in 1911 by C. F. Libbie & Company, of Boston, in 
 an auction sale of literary property from the private library of Josiah Dwight 
 Whitney, of Harvard. Since Libbie & Company refuse to give the names 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 15 
 
 In the book of selections for children 14 which Whittier edited 
 in 1871 are two selections by Mrs. Pollen: Stop, Stop, Pretty 
 Water 15 and The New Moon. 16 
 
 He shows his appreciation of Pollen in an article, The City 
 of a Day, 17 in his prose works : 
 
 The population of Lowell is constituted mainly of New 
 Englanders; but there are representatives here of almost every 
 part of the civilized world. . . . The blue-eyed, fair-haired Ger 
 man from the towered hills which overlook the Rhine, slow, 
 heavy, and unpromising in his exterior, yet of the same mould and 
 mettle of the men who rallied for their fatherland at the Tyrtean 
 call of Korner and beat back the chivalry of France from the 
 banks of the Katzbach, the countrymen of Richter and Goethe, 
 and our own Pollen. Here, too, are peddlers from Hamburg, and 
 Bavaria, and Poland, with their sharp Jewish faces, and black, 
 keen eyes. At this moment, beneath my window are two sturdy, 
 sunbrowned Swiss maidens grinding music for a livelihood, 
 rehearsing in a strange Yankee land the simple songs of their old 
 mountain home, reminding me, by their foreign garb and lan 
 guage of 
 
 Lauterbrunnen s peasant girl ." 
 
 The National Era, July 28, 1853, has an article by Whittier 
 entitled Der National Demokrat, in which he welcomes the sheet 
 and pays tribute to Pollen. The article is here given in full, as it 
 shows Whittier s interest in the German publication : 
 
 DER NATIONAL DEMOKRAT. 
 
 "The first number of this elegant sheet has made its appear 
 ance, and ere this, has found its way to every section of the country 
 
 of their customers, I have been unable to find in whose hands the letter 
 now is. 
 
 14 Child Life, edited by J. G. Whittier. Houghton, Mifflin & Company. 
 
 15 Child Life, page 55 
 
 16 Child Life, page 143. 
 
 17 Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. i, page 356. This appeared as a 
 series under the title, The Stranger in Lowell, in various numbers of the 
 Middlesex Standard, published at Lowell, Mass., beginning with August I, 
 1844. The article, in which this quotation is contained, is in the number of 
 August 8, 1844. 
 
1 6 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 where the German emigrant has set up his household tabernacle. 
 We cannot but hope that it has met with a hearty welcome from 
 thousands of our adopted countrymen of the good old Teutonic 
 stock. The great majority of them voted at the late Presidential 
 election for the candidates of the party calling itself Democratic, 
 under the mistaken impression that in so doing they were sub 
 serving the cause of freedom not only here, but in Europe. The 
 tone of the administrative organs at Washington and elsewhere, 
 on the subject of our foreign policy, and their undisguised sympa 
 thies with Russian despotism, must now, we think, fully satisfy 
 every liberty loving German, that the oppressed millions of Europe 
 have nothing to hope from the principles or practice of a party, 
 pledged to the support and perpetuity of slavery in the United 
 States. 
 
 "Many years ago the lamented Dr. Follen conferred with us 
 in relation to the publication of papers and tracts in the German 
 language, showing the character of American slavery and the 
 inconsistency of its support or countenance on the part of men 
 exiled from the old world for the love of freedom and hatred 
 of oppression. We are glad to see the project of this clear 
 sighted and warm hearted man realized in the publication of the 
 National Demokrat, only lamenting that its columns cannot be 
 enriched by the productions of his vigorous pen in elucidation 
 or defense of the Democracy of Christianity. 
 
 "And in this connection, we cannot but express our satisfac 
 tion, in view of the fact that the addition of the Demokrat is not 
 disposed to aid the conspiracy of kings and priests, and make 
 religion the ally of despotism. The great Formulator of Chris 
 tianity promulgated the principles of a Democracy more radical 
 than has yet been practiced by His professed disciples. The New 
 Testament is the text book of freedom, and when this truth 
 comes to be fully comprehended by the people, there will be an 
 end to tyrants and their priestly allies on both sides of the 
 Atlantic. If we mistake not, there is a large number of our Ger 
 man fellow-citizens to whom such a paper as the Demokrat will 
 be especially serviceable, in enabling them to discriminate between 
 the Gospel of Liberty and Humanity, and that detestable system 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 17 
 
 which mockery and king-craft have substituted for it. As a 
 matter of course, infidelity to such a system is the first and neces 
 sary step towards fidelity to the truth, in its simplicity and 
 purity. But that truth is not a mere negation of error, it is affirma 
 tive of progress and reform it is revolutionary and aggressive. 
 It will turn and overturn, until He whose right it is shall reign . 
 Eighteen centuries ago the voice of Him who spake as never man 
 spake, uttered in the synagogue of Nazareth the prophecy of the 
 inspired Hebrew poet. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, be 
 cause He hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; 
 He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver 
 ance to the captive, and recovering the sight to the blind, and to 
 set at liberty them that are bruised. And as he closed the sacred 
 scroll, He said: This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. 
 This was the birth-hour of Democracy. The free and holy element 
 of Christianity entered into a world of evil to overcome that evil 
 with good, to vindicate the brotherhood of the human family, to 
 disclose the awful intimacy of the relation which each member 
 of that family sustains to the Universal Father, where love and 
 paternal care have no respect of persons , to smite to earth all 
 distinctions between man and man, inconsistent with an equal par 
 ticipation in the blessings of life and liberty. Wherever that 
 Gospel, in its original purity and power, has had free course, it 
 has melted off the chains of slaves, and opened prison doors, 
 awakening new hopes and lofty aspirations, the consciousness of 
 an immortal nature, the knowledge of inalienable rights as the 
 gift of God. A resurrection, indeed, of the dead the Spirit of 
 the Lord touching the dry bones of the valley as in the vision of 
 Ezekiel, and clothing them with the life and strength of liberty. 
 Herein lies the hope of reformers, European Liberals and Ameri 
 can Abolitionists; and it argued well for its success that the 
 National Demokrat has entered upon its labors with a full appre 
 ciation of this truth." 
 
 J. G. W. 
 CARL SCHURZ. 
 
 Whittier admired Carl Schurz, but Mr. Pickard doubts if 
 the poet ever really met him. His autograph is in an album at 
 
1 8 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Amesbury, but the name was signed in the Senate Chamber at 
 Washington. 
 
 Whittier speaks of a report of Schurz in an unpublished 
 letter 18 to Charles Sumner, dated Amesbury, 8th, 2nd mo., 1866: 
 
 "I have to thank thee for Gen. Carl Schurz s Report. What 
 an absurd introduction to it is the executive meeting." 
 
 In Whittier s letter, 19 written at the time of the Freiligrath 
 Anniversary, 1877, he says: "The bells are ringing in the new 
 Republican President Rutherford Hayes, in whose cabinet the 
 German born Carl Schurz has a place." 
 
 WHITTIER IN PHILADELPHIA. 
 Ritner. 
 
 In 1836 Whittier s friend, Mr. Thayer, urged him to come 
 to Philadelphia to engage in a newspaper enterprise, The Penn 
 sylvania Freeman. The following letter from Whittier, Ames- 
 bury, 3 ist of 3rd month, 1837, shows his reasons for going to 
 Philadelphia : 
 
 "Our friends in Boston are fully persuaded that the grand 
 battle is now to be fought in Pennsylvania, between mobocracy 
 (excited by the slave-holding influence of Virginia and Mary 
 land, and by the President s outrageous and abominable senti 
 ments expressed in his inaugural message) and the friends of 
 liberty. One word, sub rosa : If Ritner 20 can be sustained in his 
 own state, the entire North, save New Hampshire and Maine, 
 would go for him for the Presidency." 21 
 
 In 1837 Whittier went to Harrisburg as a delegate to attend 
 the State Anti-Slavery Convention and was one of the com- 
 
 18 Original letter in the Harvard Library. 
 
 19 The whole letter is quoted later in the chapter on Freiligrath. 
 
 20 Joseph Ritner, a Pennsylvania German, was Governor of Pennsylvania 
 from December 15, 1835, to January 15, 1839. His father came from Alsace 
 and settled on a farm in Berks County, where Joseph was born March 25, 
 1780. From 1820-26 he was a member of the State Legislature and twice 
 Speaker of the House. In 1835 he was elected Governor. He was one of 
 the originators of the Pennsylvania school system; he was outspoken, not 
 afraid to stand strongly for what he considered the best for his country 
 and though a Jackson Democrat, did not hesitate to strongly denounce slavery 
 in his first message in 1836. 
 
 "Pickard, Life and Letters, page 157 . 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 19 
 
 mittee who drafted the constitution of the Society. A letter from 
 Harrisburg to his sister Elizabeth, dated 3rd of 2nd month, 1837, 
 says : 
 
 "I left Philadelphia on Seventh-day in a double sleigh with 
 Dr. Dilwyn Parish, Charles Evans and Edward M. Davis, son- 
 in-law of Lucretia Mott. That day we got to Coatesville, 
 . The next morning we started again, passed through the 
 large ill-looking town of Lancaster, the fine village of Mount 
 Joy, the beautiful Friends Meeting House of Colne and stopped 
 all night at Middletown, about twelve miles from Harrisburg. 
 After a fine ride of two hours along the banks of the Susque- 
 hanna and by the beautiful quarries of marble of all hues and 
 descriptions, amidst a population of broad-faced Germans, we 
 caught the first view of the fine bridge spanning the noble river. 
 I spent an evening with Governor Ritner, who is a warm-hearted 
 abolitionist. He is about sixty years of age, large and full-faced. 
 He came to the door when we knocked, himself, shook us heartily 
 by the hand, and in German accents told us he wast glad to see us . 
 He is very intelligent, is perfectly at home on most subjects, 
 especially in regard to matters pertaining to abolition." 22 
 
 "Philadelphia, 
 5th, 2nd mo., 1837, 
 
 at A. W. Thayers. 
 
 "We got back last night about four o clock from Harris 
 burg. We stopped at Lancaster to take breakfast." 
 
 The poems that grew out of the poet s interest in the anti- 
 slavery cause in Pennsylvania were: Ritner, 1837; The Pennsyl 
 vania Pilgrim, 1872 ; and Hymn of the Dnnkers, 1878. 
 
 The poem to Ritner 2 * appeared in The Liberator, March 24, 
 1837, entitled Lines. The poem has the following introduction: 
 
 "Written on reading the message of Governor Ritner, of 
 Pennsylvania, 1836. The fact redounds to the credit and serves 
 to perpetuate the memory of the independent farmer and high 
 souled statesman, that he alone of all the governors of the Union 
 
 23 Whittier Letters, published by John Albree, Salem, Mass., 1911, page 46. 
 23 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 275. 
 
2o Wkiitier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 in 1836 met the insulting demands and menaces of the South in 
 a manner becoming a freeman and hater of slavery, in his message 
 to the Legislature of Pennsylvania." 
 
 In the first stanza Whittier pays the highest tribute to Ritner 
 as a man ; and in the sixth stanza to his German ancestors, who 
 first dared to take up the cause of the slave : 
 
 "Thank God for the token ! one lip is still free, 
 One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee ! 
 Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, 
 Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm ; 
 When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and God, 
 Are bowed at an idol polluted with blood ; 
 When the recreant North has forgotten her trust, 
 And the lip of her honor is low in the dust, 
 Thank God that one arm from the shackle has broken ! 
 Thank God, that one man as a freeman has spoken !" 
 
 ******* 
 
 "And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true, 
 Who, haters of fraud, gave to labor its due; 
 Whose fathers, of old, sung in concert with thine. 
 On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the Rhine, 
 The German born pilgrims, who first dared to brave 
 The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave ; 24 
 Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South 
 One brow for the brand, for the padlock one mouth ? 
 They cater to tyrants ? They rivet the chain, 
 Which their fathers smote off, on the negro again?" 
 
 On the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, in which the Anti- 
 Slavery Society held its meetings, by a mob, May 17, 1838, Gov 
 ernor Ritner issued a proclamation denouncing the work of the 
 mob and offering a reward for the arrest of the law breakers. 
 
 In The Pennsylvania Freeman, 8th mo., 2nd, 1838, of which 
 Whittier was the editor, appeared the following : 
 
 "The late number of The Pittsburgh Christian Witness con 
 tains a letter from Joseph Ritner to Henry Hannan, Correspond 
 ing Secretary of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Anti- 
 
 24 The German Friends of Germantown were the first religious body in 
 this country to issue a protest against slavery (1688). 
 
Whit-tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 21 
 
 Slavery Society, which we publish below. A letter was also 
 addressed to General D. R. Porter, the Democratic candidate for 
 Governor, but who has not seen fit to answer it. 
 
 " Harrisburg, April 5, 1838. 
 
 " Sir : The letter which you, as Secretary of the Executive 
 Committee of the Western Division of the Anti-Slavery Society of 
 Pennsylvania, addressed to me on the 27th ult. was received on 
 the 3rd inst. By direction of the committee you ask me the fol 
 lowing questions : 
 
 " *i. Is the existence of Slavery and the Slave trade in the 
 District of Columbia in conformity to the principles of justice 
 and humanity, and accordant with the genius and theory of our 
 republican institution ? 
 
 " 2. Does Congress possess the constitutional power to 
 abolish Slavery and the Slave trade in the District of Columbia ? 
 
 " 3. Is it expedient that Congress should exercise this right 
 and abolish Slavery and the Slave trade in the District of 
 Columbia ? 
 
 " 4. Are you in favor of the extension of the right of jury 
 trial to all cases involving the question of your personal liberty? 
 
 " 5. Are you opposed to the annexation of Texas to the 
 United States ? 
 
 " To these three inquiries I reply by referring you to my 
 annual message to the Legislature at the commencement of the 
 session of 1836-37 and by stating that none of the opinions therein 
 expressed have been changed. 
 
 " To the fourth question my reply is that I am in favor of 
 extending the right of trial by jury to all cases involving the 
 question of personal liberty, with the single restriction, that in 
 cases of fugitives from labor in other states who are admitted 
 to be slaves, it should not be granted. This exception I believe 
 to be due to the sister states in which domestic slavery constitu 
 tionally exists and in which however we may deplore it as a mis 
 fortune, we are bound to respect it as a constitutional institution. 
 This exception is also inevitable from the nature of the issue 
 involved. The question being simply one of slavery, or no slavery ; 
 
22 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 of course, whenever the fact is admitted, not only is there no 
 need of further investigation, but it would be vexatious to the 
 claimant to interpose the delay of a jury trial. 
 
 " On the other hand, in all cases in which a reasonable doubt 
 of the fact of slavery is raised by affidavit, I would be decidedly 
 in favor of having the doubt determined by a jury. Among us, 
 every man accused of crime, however vile he may be, is pre 
 sumed to be innocent till convicted by a jury. Shall we be less 
 cautious in the proceedings which are to consign a fellow creature 
 to servitude for life, than in those which will perhaps only send 
 him to idleness for a month in the county jail? 
 
 " In reply to the fifth question I am opposed to the admis 
 sion of Texas, by any means, at any time, into this Union. The 
 annexed copy of a communication sent to the Legislature on the 
 nth day of January last, 1838, will make known my official 
 opinion on this subject. 
 
 " I am sir, your fellow citizen, 
 
 " JOSEPH RITNER. 
 " MR. HENRY HANNAN, 
 
 " Secretary, etc., Pittsburgh, Pa. 
 
 " To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Common 
 wealth of Pennsylvania. 
 
 " Gentlemen : In accordance with the request of the Gov 
 ernor and Legislature of the State of Rhode Island, I have the 
 honor to transmit for your consideration, the accompanying reso 
 lution adopted by the Legislature of that state, relative to the 
 admission of Texas into the Union. 
 
 " Permit me to say that while we, as citizens of a non-slave 
 holding state, should studiously disavow the intention and avoid 
 the appearance of intermeddling with the institution of slavery in 
 such states of the Union as labor under the misfortune of its 
 existence ; yet that a moral obligation rests upon us to oppose, by 
 every constitutional means, the spread of the evil in this Union. 
 The other dangerous consequence to be expected from the annexa 
 tion of Texas, set forth in the Rhode Island resolutions, are cer 
 tainly great and alarming, but this is the most serious of all. The 
 
Whittled s Relation to German Life and Thought 23 
 
 present is a most proper juncture for legislative and other expres 
 sions of public opinion on the subject. 
 
 " The project, if seriously countenanced at all in this state, 
 has been either generally concealed or disavowed by all parties. 
 The public mind is therefore open to sound reasoning and pre 
 pared for right action on the subject. 
 
 Tn addition to the claim upon your attention, which the 
 matter possesses, as coming from the Legislature of a sister state, 
 its own grave import and the suitableness of the present time 
 for action, seem to demand an expression of the opinion of the 
 citizens of this state upon it, through you their representation. 
 " Executive Chamber, 
 
 " Harrisburg, January n, 1838. " 
 
 In the summer of 1839, Henry B. Stanton and John G. Whit- 
 tier were sent by the American Anti-Slavery Society on a tour 
 through Pennsylvania to employ seventy public speakers in the 
 interests of abolition. They visited especially theological schools 
 and other institutions of learning. One of these was the Lutheran 
 Institution on Seminary Ridge at Gettysburg. A letter 25 to Eliza 
 beth J. Neall, of Philadelphia, written from Carlisle, Pa., July 
 8, 1839, says: 
 
 "Why didn t we get the breakfast at 325 Arch, according 
 to promise? Why for a very good reason, nay, perhaps, for tzvo 
 good reasons, i. We lay abed too late. 2. Perhaps thee did also, 
 and if we had called at the hour specified, and inquired for thee 
 and the breakfast, the report in regard to both might have been 
 non est invcntus . We had hardly time as it was to get to the 
 car office and secure our seats. We rode about two hours and 
 stopped at a dirty Dutch tavern for breakfast. An execrable cup 
 of tea, which would have poisoned a Chinese mandarin ; ham, 
 tough and solid as sheet iron, which had probably been smoked 
 and salted annually for the last twenty years ; and some hot cakes 
 saturated with bad butter, greasy and heavy, and anti-Grahamish, 
 constituted our wretched fare. It was such a trick upon travelers 
 as Yankee landlords would have been ashamed of. ... We 
 
 35 Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, pages 252-253. 
 
24 Whittiers Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 got to Harrisburg about three o clock, and stopped at the splendid 
 hotel Wilson, on Market Street. Yesterday Stanton lectured twice, 
 and I made some visits. This morning we spent in looking up 
 some anti-slavery matters, and at three o clock we again took 
 the cars for Carlisle. Tomorrow, if nothing happens, we shall 
 go to Governor Ritner s, and from thence we shall push on to 
 Gettysburg in search of some one or more lecturers to talk Dutch 
 Abolition. We have been recommended to some half dozen 
 Schloshen-burgers, and Quakenbosches, and Kakerspergers, and 
 Slambangers, with unpronounceable Dutch names enough to 
 crack the jaws of any Anglo-Saxon, whom we hope to interest 
 in our cause. We must get the Germans with us, by some means 
 or other. These middle countries are full of Germans, and they 
 are on this subject thrice dead and plucked up by the roots . They 
 must be roused up by all events. 
 
 "9th, Third-day morning. We have just returned from a 
 ride to Governor Ritner s farm, about nine miles from Carlisle. 
 The old man was out on his farm, and his wife and daughters 
 welcomed us with great hospitality. The Governor soon came 
 in in his working dress. We stayed about one hour and a half, 
 and then rode back to Carlisle, where we now are. This afternoon 
 we start for Chambersburg and Gettysburg." 
 
 In the number, July 25, 1844, of The Middlesex Standard, 
 published at Lowell, Mass., of which Whittier was editor, is the 
 following editorial : 
 
 "Governor Ritner Our neighbor of The Advertiser states 
 on the authority of a Pittsburg, Pa. paper that Hon. J. Ritner, late 
 Governor of Pennsylvania, and Hon. T. H. Burrows and Judge 
 Todd, two of the most prominent men in Governor Ritner s 
 administration, have declared their determination not to vote for 
 Henry Clay. 
 
 "Our neighbor does not say that the Governor and his friends 
 are prepared to vote for Polk and Texas . He only leaves his 
 readers to draw such an inference. That Governor Ritner, and 
 the two gentlemen alluded to, have signified their opposition to 
 Henry Clay, does not surprise us knowing as we do their strong 
 anti-slavery tendencies. But the editor of The Advertiser may 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 25 
 
 rest assured that, after renouncing Clay on the ground of slave 
 holding, they will not go over to Polk and Texas . They will 
 take their stand with the Liberty Party, for Birney and Morris. 
 "In 1839 we spent an hour or two with Governor Ritner at 
 his residence near Carlisle. We found him in the field, hard at 
 work with coat off and shirt sleeves rolled up, a fine manly 
 specimen of an intelligent and independent farmer. He entered 
 into conversation, with great freedom on the subject of slavery, 
 and avowed himself an uncompromising friend to the slave. We 
 should rejoice to welcome such a man into the ranks of Liberty, 
 but we confess that we have strong fears that he will be induced, 
 like Cassius M. Clay, to vote for a slave holder this time . 
 Thomas H. Burrows, we are persuaded, will not vote for Henry 
 
 Clay." 
 
 In the number of August 8th, of the same year, is the fol 
 lowing in the editor s column : 
 
 "Governor Ritner The Whig papers say that Governor Rit 
 ner will not vote for Polk, and that he will not oppose Clay. Will 
 he vote for him?" 
 
 In the article in his prose works entitled The City of a Day, 2Q 
 Whittier refers to his trips through Pennsylvania among the Ger 
 mans and gives an account of an odd, old character amongst 
 them, named Etzler. 
 
 In a visit to Massachusetts in the autumn of 1838 he wrote 
 in the album of Mary Pillsbury, of West Newbury, these lines : 
 
 "Think of me then as one who keeps, 
 
 Where Delaware s broad current sweeps, 
 And down its rugged limestone bed 
 
 The Schuylkill s arrowy flight is sped, 
 Deep in his heart the scenes which grace 
 
 And glorify his native place , 
 Loves every spot to childhood dear, 
 
 And leaves his heart untraveled here.; 
 Longs midst the Dutchman s 27 kraut and greens 
 
 For pumpkin-pie and pork and beans. " 27a 
 
 M Prose Works of /. G. Whittier, Riverside Edition, Vol. I, pages 353-4. 
 27 Whittier means "Pennsylvania Germans", who are erroneously called 
 "Penna. Dutch". 
 
 2Tft Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 242. 
 
26 W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA FREEMAN. 
 
 Whittier edited this periodical from March 15, 1838, until 
 February 20, 1840, when ill-health forced him to resign and 
 return to New England. 
 
 From time to time, articles on the anti-slavery movement 
 among the Germans, appeared in its columns, mostly accompanied 
 by remarks from the editor. 
 
 For the dedication of Pennsylvania Hall, May 15, 1838, 
 Whittier wrote a poem 28 which was read by C. C. Burleigh and 
 which appeared in The Pennsylvania Freeman, Fifth day, Fifth 
 month, 1838. The following lines again pay high tribute to the 
 German settlers of Germantown, Pa., in their stand against 
 slavery : 
 
 "Is it a dream, that with their eyes of love, 
 They gaze now on us from the bowers above ? 
 Lay s ardent soul, and Benezet the mild, 
 Steadfast in faith, yet gentle as a child, 
 Meek-hearted Woolman, and that brother band, 
 The sorrowing exiles from their Fatherland , 
 Leaving their homes in Kriesheim s bowers of vine, 
 And the blue beauty of their glorious Rhine, 
 To seek amidst our solemn depths of wood 
 Freedom from man, and holy peace with God ; 
 Who first of all their testimonial gave 
 Against the oppressor, for the outcast slave, 
 Is it a dream that such as these look clown, 
 And with their blessing our rejoicings crown?" 
 
 In the number for 5th day, /th mo., 1838, appeared a letter 
 of Dr. Schmucker, President of Gettysburg College. The fol 
 lowing editorial note explains the nature of the letter : 
 
 "We give below from The Colonization Herald the letter 
 of Dr. Schmucker, 29 President of the Gettysburg College, declin 
 ing to act as Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Colonization 
 
 28 Cambridge Edition of Poems of Whittier, page 279. 
 
 29 Dr. Samuel Simon Schmucker (1799-1873), son of Johann Georg 
 Schmucker, born in Hesse-Darmstadt, 1771. Samuel graduated at the Uni 
 versity of Pennsylvania in 1817, studied divinity at Princeton and was Lutheran 
 pastor at New Market, Va., 1820-26. Together with his father, he was one of 
 
Whitticr s Relation to German Life and Thought 27 
 
 Society. We trust the name of the able and learned writer will 
 ere long be ranged with those of the Smiths and Birneys, and 
 Delavans, and Notts, who have not only abandoned Colonization, 
 but have given their influence to the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society." 
 
 In the issue of the paper for 7th mo., 5th, 1838, are given 
 the resolutions against anti-slavery passed by the Franckean 
 Lutheran Synod "convened in Onandaga County, New York". 
 
 In the edition of The Freeman for 7th mo., 5, 1838, ap 
 peared an interesting article on the German Settlement of Zoar, 
 Ohio, copied from The Cincinnati Daily Gazette. 
 
 Pennsylvania Freeman, 5th day, nth mo., 15, 1838. 
 German Publications. 
 
 "A neat pamphlet of eight pages entitled What is Abolition? 
 will be published this week in the German language from the 
 press of our friend C. F. Stollmeyer, editor of The German 
 National Gazette in this city. It will be followed by The Extra 
 Pennsylvania Freeman and other publications." 
 
 Similar notices appeared from time to time in the columns of 
 the paper. 
 
 In the Pennsylvania Freeman, 5th day, nth mo., 22, 1838, 
 is a notice from the Kent Bugle of German emigration to the 
 Eastern shore of Maryland, and of the benefit to be derived from 
 their location there. 
 
 Pennsylvania Freeman, 5th day, I2th mo., 20, 1838. 
 
 Extract From an Article on: The Cause in Eastern Pennsylvania. 
 
 "The demand for anti-slavery publications is rapidly increas 
 ing. Four thousand copies of the first of a series of tracts in 
 German, entitled What is Abolition? have been distributed, and 
 another, of twelve pages, on The Moral Condition of the Slaves, 
 
 the founders of the Lutheran Synod in 1820, and of the Theological Seminary 
 at Gettysburg in 1826. He taught at Gettysburg till 1830 and was its president 
 till 1864. He exerted a great influence on the community, which was almost 
 entirely German. 
 
28 IV hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 has just been issued from the press. Our friends in Berks, Lan 
 caster, Dauphin, and Bucks, will, we trust, send in their orders 
 immediately, and supply their German neighbors." 
 
 Pennsylvania Freeman, 5th day, 2nd mo., 14, 1839. 
 Extract From a Letter From the Editor. 
 
 Boston, 2nd mo., 4, 1839. 
 
 "The cause of the slave is safe in Massachusetts, safe as 
 that of the reformation when Luther disagreed with Melancthon 
 and the less ardent reformers." . . . Our friends here look 
 to Pennsylvania as the theatre of the greatest struggle for the 
 ascendancy of abolition principles in the free states." 
 
 Pennsylvania Freeman, 5th day, 2nd mo., 28, 1839. 
 
 "We have received an interesting letter from our friend C. 
 F. Stollmeyer, who has undertaken the good work of lecturing in 
 favor of abolition, in the German language. It is dated Doyles- 
 town, February I9th. He mentions a meeting which is attended 
 at a schoolhouse in Rock Hill, Bucks County, for free discussion 
 in the German tongue, on the question, whether slavery in the 
 United States is beneficial or not. The house was crowded, about 
 two hundred persons being present. Three judges were selected, 
 Messrs. Jacob Appenzeller, John Hendrick, and Abraham Fretz ; 
 the latter being one of the County Commissioners. Mr. Stoll 
 meyer addressed the audience fiye times in reply to the argu 
 ments in favor of the advantages of slavery, after which the judge 
 retired, consulted and reported their unanimous opinion, that 
 slavery is pernicious to the United States, and that its abolition 
 would be a benefit. All who were assembled cheered this report 
 and much gratification was expressed with the discussion. Says 
 our friend, Stollmeyer, T hardly remember to have felt such real 
 pleasure as on that evening. I saw what I predicted, that the 
 Germans in the interior of this state have sound and honest feel 
 ings, and will not oppose the labors of the abolitionists. 
 
 "He remarks that those who took the side that slavery was 
 beneficial, declined to maintain that it was morally justifiable. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 29 
 
 "Mr. Stollmeyer applied for the use of the Mennonist Meet 
 ing House in Doylestown. Several trustees appeared willing that 
 it should be had, but two clergymen speakers believed that such 
 a lecture would not be fit for their church. We regret that such 
 a disposition should exist among preachers of a society which we 
 have always understood to be opposed to slavery." 
 
 Pennsylvania Freeman, 3rd mo., 14, 1839. 
 
 From the Editorial Column. 
 
 "We happened to be in one of our public reading-rooms a 
 few days since, when an intelligent German of this city came in 
 with his friend who had recently arrived from Europe. The 
 latter in looking over a file of Georgia papers, and seeing several 
 advertisements of men for sale, with the usual prints accompany 
 ing them, turned to his friend and exclaimed, Is it possible that 
 you sell men in this country? He had fled from despotism and 
 came here to find the home of freedom, and an advertisement of 
 men for sale, as cattle are advertised in his native country, was a 
 thing unexpected and strange." 
 
 Pennsylvania Freeman, 8th mo., n, 1838. 
 
 In a long editorial where the announcement is made that the 
 editor is back again at his post after his absence, and discussing 
 the situation in Pennsylvania and New England, he makes use 
 of the following illustration : 
 
 "There is a passage in one of Calvin s letters to Melancthon, 
 written at a period when the fierce divisions of the Protestant 
 Reformers furnished the strongest argument against them, which 
 is especially deserving of the attention of abolitionists of present 
 day. It is important, says he, that no suspicion of the divisions 
 which are amongst us, should descend to future ages. For it 
 would be ridiculous beyond imagination that after having broken 
 with all the world, we should from the beginning of the Reforma 
 tion agree so ill among ourselves. 
 
30 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Pennsylvania Freeman, 5th day, 7th mo., 25, 1839. 
 
 "The following able article is from the pen of C. F. Stoll- 
 meyer, Esq., editor of The German National Gazette, and was 
 published in his paper of the 2Oth inst. It has been translated 
 for the Freeman. The letters of the patriotic martyr to the cause 
 of German liberty, from the cells of a despot s prison, cannot but 
 have an influence upon every German heart, which feels an 
 interest in the freedom and welfare of the Fatherland . 
 
 " A Voice From Germany. 
 " ( G. Seidenstickers Views of American Slavery. 
 
 " Most of our readers are acquainted with the life and his 
 tory of Seiclensticker, one of the martyrs of German liberty. They 
 know that since the deplorable days of the Hanoverian revolu 
 tion in January, 1831, he has lingered in the prisons of Celle, 
 although his crime and that of his friends is no other than to 
 have desired what the signers of the North American Declara 
 tion of Independence achieved in Political Liberty for their 
 Fatherland. 
 
 " During the revolution in Gottingen, we had the pleasure 
 of enjoying much of his society ; we always found him an amiable 
 friend, and a man fired with the enthusiasm for liberty and 
 republican institutions, a man whom no obstacle could deter, and 
 who never lost sight of the realization of his projects and the 
 performance of his duty. Often, when the courage of his friends 
 began to fail, and doubts were expressed as to the possible success 
 of the undertaking, we have seen him point to America and place 
 before our eyes the combats and victories of the former colonies. 
 Alas, he has been disappointed ; for, cut off from our friends and 
 those who shared our opinions in other parts of Hanover, without 
 assistance from Brunswick and Hesse, we were obliged to yield 
 to force. Many of our friends found safety in flight and pro 
 tection in foreign lands, but Eggerling and Seiclensticker, the 
 most active members of the Republican party, were taken and 
 thrust into dungeons. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 31 
 
 " All the humiliations which they have suffered during an in 
 quisitorial examination and an imprisonment of eight years in 
 Celle, have not been able to crush their bold spirits, or close their 
 hearts against the misfortunes of others. 
 
 " Forgetting his own suffering, Seidensticker remembers the 
 misery of the oppressed slaves, and says in his letter, written in 
 prison : 
 
 " * "Warmed as I feel with sympathy, every time that such 
 men as Mr. Slade, deputy from Vermont, raise their voices for the 
 abolition of slavery, this stain of infamy upon the United States ; 
 yet the interest in American institutions and the confidence in 
 their advantages must be considerably diminished, nay the feel 
 ings of every philanthropist must be outraged, when we read 
 speeches, such as that of Mr. Calhoun, in the Senate, and those 
 of the deputies Wise and Legare, for Virginia and South Caro 
 lina; but above all that of Mr. Campbell, who carried his inso 
 lence so far as to threaten a dissolution of the Union if the sub 
 ject of emancipation should ever be alluded to again. A conduct 
 so base should properly be treated as high treason against the 
 honor of the Union. How much better has England acted 
 toward those of her colonies where slavery was still in existence." 
 
 " The editor of the Alte nnd Neue Welt, who gives an ex 
 tract from the above letter, observes : 
 
 " "Who can deny that slavery is a stain of infamy on the 
 United States? Would not every man of proper feeling wish 
 to see it wiped off? What orator, who wishes to be esteemed by 
 the good, and not to be branded before the tribunal of humanity, 
 would prostitute his talents to the defence of a systematic con 
 tinuation of slavery in the bosom of liberty?" 
 
 " So far we are glad to coincide with him and we are only 
 sorry that, whilst he considers the defence of a systematic con 
 tinuation of slavery unworthy of a man who does not wish to be 
 despised by the good and branded before the tribunal of humanity, 
 he does not recommend a systematic abolition of this stain of 
 infamy upon the Union, but adds the following : 
 
 " "But in the life of nations theory is often opposed to prac 
 tice, when unmatured heterogeneous powers are to be combined, 
 
32 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 so are there in this justly far-famed land of liberty many deep- 
 rooted evils of which slavery is, perhaps, the worst, and 
 the most skillful gardener might not succeed in separating sud 
 denly the diseased root from the trunk, without causing the death 
 of the tree, which, if it does not blossom in full luxuriousness, 
 nurtures the seed of many an excellent fruit." 
 
 " Mr. Ludvigh seems to believe that if the theory of the 
 abolition of slavery (which he compares to a sick root of the 
 trunk of liberty) was to be reduced to practice in the United 
 States, it would cause the death of the Republic (the tree of 
 liberty). 
 
 " What has brought about the fall of Sparta and the other 
 Greek republics, as well as of proud Rome ? A system of slavery 
 and a consequent demoralization? Why has the Republic of 
 Switzerland existed for more than five hundred years surrounded 
 by monarchies ? Because slavery, the root of demoralization and 
 despotism has never been tolerated there. Our opinion, which is 
 founded upon observations of the natural course of events, is, 
 that the curing of a disease produces health, not death, as well 
 in the body of man as in the body of the state. 
 
 " As an individual suffers when his body is diseased, so does 
 the citizen suffer from the malady of the state, when wrong is 
 publicly defended by those who are charged with the care of the 
 state, injustice will be heaped upon injustice. The defence of 
 slavery is followed by the refusal of the right of petitioning, a 
 right, the violation of which overthrows the principles of the 
 republic. The servants elected by the people, the members of 
 Congress, refused to listen to the wishes of their constituents, 
 and by this act of violence assumed the character of dictators. 
 Many who used to take no notice of the events at Washington 
 were aroused from their slumbers and perceived the threatening 
 danger. 
 
 " The names of these violators of the constitution are written 
 down in expungeable characters and in time will not escape the 
 general branding. Already the personal and party friends of these 
 men admit this act to have been a blunder, but it is not only a 
 blunder but an act of villainy. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 33 
 
 " But what are the best means to wipe away this stain of in 
 famy which has been put upon us in the eyes of the world ? Noth 
 ing but a recall of the Athertonian resolutions. It is the particular 
 duty of every German citizen to do his utmost that this recall 
 take place speedily. This is so much the more incumbent upon 
 us, as we know more or less from experience the meaning of 
 political oppression and how necessary it is to preserve the tender 
 plant of liberty from blight and noxious insects. In our own 
 political views we care more for principles than for men, as most 
 of us prefer their business to any favors which a president or gov 
 ernment can bestow. It is quite indifferent to us, who fills the 
 seat of president, if we have only the security that the principle 
 is not endangered, but preserved in its purity. The question we 
 ought to propose at the election of officers is not, are you a 
 whig, a democrat or a conservative? but, do you recognize the 
 equal rights of all men ? Will you be governed by the principles 
 of the constitution and of the declaration of independence? Is 
 your former life a security for the performance of your promise? 
 When the candidates have answered these questions satisfactorily, 
 let the Democrats choose democrats, and the Whigs, whig candi 
 dates. Liberty will be preserved for there is nothing pernicious 
 in the principles of either party. What distinguishes them is more 
 of a personal nature, and can, when the existence of the republic 
 is at stake, form no object of consideration. 
 
 Whittier refers to this letter in his Prose Works, 29a in an 
 Article on William Leggett: 
 
 "We have before us, at this time, a letter from Seidensticker, 
 one of the leaders of the patriotic movement in behalf of German 
 liberty in 1831. It was written from the prison of Celle, where 
 he had been confined for eight years. The writer expresses his 
 indignant astonishment at the speeches of John C. Calhoun, and 
 others in Congress, on the slavery question, and deplores the dis 
 astrous influence of our great inconsistency upon the cause of 
 freedom throughout the world an influence which paralyzes the 
 hands of the patriotic reformer, while it strengthens those of the 
 
 Wa Prose Works, Riverside Edition, page 213. 
 
34 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 oppressor, and deepens around the living martyrs and confessors 
 of European democracy the cold shadow of their prisons." 
 
 A poem, (which appeared in the paper 3 mo., 10, 1841) is 
 an example of Whittier s vivid pictures of things that he has seen 
 only through the eyes of his friends who have travelled in Europe. 
 
 Poem to a Friend Returning From Europe. 
 
 "Rhine stream, and castle old, 
 
 Gray tower and robher hold 
 In the dim distance ! 
 
 Walls which the Roman laid 
 Towers which to Gothic blade 
 Barbed spear and arrow made 
 Sturdy resistance." 30 
 
 J. G. W. 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 The long years of close friendship with Bayard Taylor, 
 brought our poet perhaps into deeper touch with German litera 
 ture and thought than any other single influence. 
 
 Taylor was, like Whittier, of Quaker parentage. He was of 
 Pennsylvania German descent, having German blood in his veins 
 from both his grandmothers. In fact his father s mother always 
 spoke Pennsylvania German to her children. 
 
 Taylor s connection with Germany is too well known to make 
 it necessary to recount it here. His many works on German sub 
 jects were well known to Whittier. In fact many, if not all of 
 Taylor s works, were presented to Whittier by the author. 
 
 The friendship of the two poets had its origin in Whittier s 
 publishing in The National Era* 1 of August 19, 1847, an d P re ~ 
 facing with hearty commendation, Taylor s poem, The Norse 
 man s Ride from The Democratic Review of November, 1846, in 
 which it had appeared anonymously. In 1848 Taylor took a holi- 
 
 80 This poem is included in the collected works, Camb. Ed., page 174. The 
 wording has, however, been somewhat changed. 
 
 31 Pickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 326. This 
 article of Whittier s in the National Era on the Norseman s Ride, together 
 with Taylor s poem, is to be found in Whittier s Prose Works, Riverside Edi 
 tion, Vol. Ill, pages 396-400, entitled, The Poetry of the North. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 35 
 
 day trip to Boston, and in a letter 32 to Mary Agnew, dated New 
 York, October 13, 1848, he speaks of a visit to the poet Whittier. 
 
 The introductory paragraphs of Whittier s review in The 
 National Era for July 4, 1850, show his delight in Taylor s tales 
 of travel and adventure : 
 
 When the work and care of daily life and homely duties 
 and the weary routine of sight and sound oppress us, what a com 
 fort, and refreshing it is, to open the charmed pages of the 
 traveller! Our narrow, monotonous horizon breaks away all 
 about us, five minutes suffice to take us quite out of the common 
 place and familiar regions of our experience ; we are in the court 
 of the great Kahn . . . taking part in a holy fete at Rome, 
 and a merry Christmas at Berlin." 
 
 Taylor visited New England many times after this and spent 
 many happy hours at Whittier s home in Amesbury and many 
 letters passed between the two poets. A letter 33 from Whittier 
 to Taylor from Amesbury, 7th mo., 15, 1860, says: 
 
 "I wish I were a better traveler; if I could keep pace with 
 you I would join you at the mountains instead of sending this 
 note. I travel a great deal however by proxy. I have had thee 
 in my service for many years, very much to my satisfaction ; Dr. 
 Barth 34 has been to Timbucto for me, and Burton to Mecca; 
 Atkinson has been doing Siberia for me. I think (if thy Marie 
 does not object) of sending thee off to Xanadu and Kubla Khan. 
 We have been enjoying thy friend Hans Christian Andersen s 
 charming Sand Hills of Jutland. The Mud King s Daughter is 
 almost equal to Undine. 
 
 In an unpublished letter 35 to James T. Fields from Whittier, 
 dated Amesbury 6, ist mo., 1886, he says: "Winter s down on 
 us here in earnest. Bayard Taylor could find Lapland here, just 
 
 32 Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, by Mrs. Taylor and Horace E. 
 Scudder, page 135- 
 
 83 Pickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 429 ; the 
 original letter is in possession of S. T. Pickard, Amesbury, Mass. 
 
 34 Dr. Heinrich Barth (1824-65). A German explorer and traveler; noted 
 especially for his explorations in Central Africa. Mr. Pickard has mis 
 quoted the name in his Life of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 429. 
 
 35 Letter in possession of Mrs. James T. Fields, Boston, Mass. 
 
36 W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 at this time, without taking the trouble to follow in the tracks of 
 A f raja over the Lap mountains as he tells me he intends to do." 
 In 1866, Whittier completed his Tent on the Beach, in which 
 he says in a letter to his publisher James T. Fields, dated Ames- 
 bury, 1 2th mo., 28, 1866: "I have represented thee, Bayard Tay 
 lor, and myself, living a wild tent life for a few summer days on 
 the beach, where for lack of something better I read my stories to 
 you." 36 And to Taylor a letter dated February ist says : "I must 
 ask Fields to send thee the proof-sheets of the Tent on the Beach; 
 and I here beg pardon for the friendly license of using thee as 
 one of the imaginary trio on the seashore. I hope neither thee 
 nor Marie will think I have got thee into bad company. And 
 now, dear friend, dear to me, not on my own account alone, but 
 on that of my dear mother and sister, who loved thee so well, 
 may God bless and keep thee and thine during your European 
 sojourn, and bring you safe back to the quiet of Cedarcroft." 37 
 With this letter Mr. Whittier enclosed a stanza from his Last 
 Walk in Autumn, written in 1857, in which he had already paid 
 a tribute to his traveller friend : 
 
 "Here too, of answering love secure, 
 
 Have I not welcomed to my hearth 
 The gentle pilgrim troubadour, 
 
 Whose songs have girdled half the earth; 
 Whose pages, like the magic mat 
 
 Whereon the Eastern lover sat, 
 Have borne me over Rhine-land s purple vines 
 
 And Nubia s tawny sands, and Phrygia s mountain pines." 
 
 The completed first part of Faust was published at Boston 
 by Fields, Osgood & Co., 1870, a copy of which Taylor presented 
 to his friend Whittier with the inscription on the fly-leaf : 
 
 "To John G. Whittier, with the love of his friend, Bayard 
 Taylor, December 14, 1870." 
 
 86 Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 507. Orig 
 inal letter owned by Mrs. James T. Fields. 
 
 37 Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 508. Orig 
 inal letter owned by Mrs. James T. Fields. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 37 
 
 A letter 38 from Whittier to Taylor, dated Amesbury, 4th 
 mo., 19, 1871, says: "I am more and more struck with thy suc 
 cess in the versification of Faust, thee has caught the very spirit 
 and tone of the master himself." 
 
 In honor of the publication of the book, Mr. and Mrs. Fields 
 gave a dinner to Taylor and his wife, inviting a number of their 
 literary friends. Whittier was among the invited guests and 
 wrote a letter 39 of thanks to Fields in which he says : 
 
 "It would be pleasant to sit down with thy special guest, 
 my dear friend Taylor, and with others whose poetical shoe 
 strings I hold myself unworthy to untie ; the wisest of philosophers 
 and most genial of men from Concord ; the architect of the only 
 noteworthy Cathedral in the New World; and his neighbor, 
 the far travelled explorer of Purgatory and Hell, and the scarcely 
 less dreary Paradise of the great Italian dreamer. I would like 
 to join with them in congratulation of our Pennsylvania Friend, 
 who introduces to English-speaking people the great masterpiece 
 of Teutonic literature. It seems to me that he is precisely the 
 man of all others to do it. In the first place, though he labors 
 under the misfortune of not having been born in sight of Boston 
 meeting-house, he inherits from his ancestry the Quaker gift of 
 spiritual appreciation and recognition, the belief not only in his 
 own revelations, but in those of others. In the second place, he 
 is a poet himself. Thirdly, he has studied man and nature in all 
 lands and in all phases; and fourthly, he has brought himself 
 into the closest possible association with the culture and senti 
 ment, the intellect and the heart of the Germany of Goethe, by 
 bringing under his roof-tree at Cedarcroft an estimable country 
 woman 40 of Charlotte and Margaret, Natalie and Dorothea. The 
 best translation of Tasso is that of the Quaker Wiffin, and now 
 we have the best of Goethe from the Quaker-born Taylor. With 
 
 38 Original letter in possession of S. T. Pickard, Amesbury, Mass. 
 
 39 Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, by Marie Hansen Taylor and Horace 
 E. Scudder, page 543. Original letter owned by Mrs. James T. Fields. 
 
 40 In 1887, Taylor was married to Marie Hansen, the daughter of Peter 
 Andreas Hansen, eminent astronomer and director of the Ducal Observatory 
 at Gotha, Germany. 
 
38 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 something of pride therefore, I stretch out my congratulatory 
 hand, and thank him. God bless him, or to use the words made 
 sacred by the memory of one dear to us all, God bless us every 
 one. " 
 
 In 1872 Whittier published his Pennsylvania Pilgrim and 
 sent Taylor a copy of it. A letter 41 from Taylor to Whittier, 
 dated Gotha, Germany, December 30, 1872, says: "The Penn 
 sylvania Pilgrim came to me as a Christmas gift, all the more 
 welcome because so unexpected. I have just finished reading it, 
 and can now return intelligent thanks for your thoughtful kind 
 ness in sending the volume so far. Yet one reading cannot 
 exhaust the fullness of meaning and of feeling in the chief poem. 
 I was not more attracted by the story of Pastorius (of whom 
 I knew almost nothing) than by the warm, bright background of 
 tolerance and mellow humanity upon which his figure is drawn. 
 The latter is like the ground of dead gold which the early Italian 
 painters gave to the forms of their saints, only more luminous. 
 But, mixed with my delight in the poem from first to last, there 
 is a feeling of surprise which I can only explain by telling you 
 what I have been doing. Three months ago I was moved to begin 
 a narrative poem, the conception of which had been haunting my 
 mind for five or six years. Once begun, I could not leave the 
 subject. I dropped all other work and by the beginning of 
 November had finished an idyllic narrative poem of more than 
 2100 lines, in blank verse. The title is Lars, and the scene is laid 
 partly in Norway and partly on the banks of the Delaware. 
 
 "I have brought Quaker peace and Berserker rage into con 
 flict, and given the triumph to the former. The one bit of fact 
 out of which the poem grew is the circumstance that there is, 
 or at least there was, a small community of Friends at Arendal 
 in Norway. The story is wholly of my own invention. Now 
 in describing a silent meeting I have expressed the same thought 
 which I find in the Pilgrim 
 
 The gathered stillness multiplied 
 And made intense by sympathy/ 
 
 41 Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, by Marie Hansen Taylor and Horace 
 E. Scudder, page 610. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 39 
 
 And the conclusion of my poem is exactly the same thought, in 
 other words, as the conclusion of yours. I will quote from my 
 MS: 
 
 Though the name of Lars 
 Be never heard, the healing of the world 
 Is in the nameless saints. Each separate star 
 Seems nothing, but a myriad scattered stars 
 Break up the night, and make it beautiful. 
 
 It is pleasant to me to know that we have both been busy with 
 the same, or kindred thoughts. When I sent the MS of my poem 
 to Osgood three weeks ago, I also sent a dedicatory poem, 42 which 
 is more than ever justified by this coincidence. I requested 
 Osgood to let you see the MS, or the proofs, if there should be 
 opportunity. But if any charge of plagarism is made, it will 
 fall upon me! The absence of music, color, and external graces 
 makes the Quaker a difficult subject for poetry, unless the latter 
 touches only his spiritual side, which I have endeavored to do. I 
 depend on my Norwegian characters for whatever external pic- 
 turesqueness seemed to be necessary. I feel sure that there are 
 some things in the poem which you will like, and I hope there may 
 be nothing in it to make the dedication unwelcome. I am not 
 ashamed to say that I cried over many passages while writing. 
 
 "The collection of materials for my Biography of Goethe 
 goes rapidly on, but the work itself must be done slowly. I shall 
 take my time to it, and meanwhile be able, I hope, to work out 
 other poetic ideas which are waiting for their turn. After many 
 wanderings of mind and fancy, I seem to have found my true 
 field : at least I am happy in my work, as never before. 
 
 "Three weeks ago I gave a lecture here in German, on Ameri 
 can Literature, in aid of a charitable society of women. It was 
 my first experiment of the kind, but proved to be successful. 
 Among other quotations I read an excellent translation of your 
 
 43 The poem of Lars was dedicated to Whittier ; for this dedication see 
 Bayard Taylor s Poems, Household Edition, Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 
 Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., page 302. 
 
4O W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Song of the Slaves in the Desert, 43 which made a deep impression 
 upon the audience. I have several times since then been called 
 upon to read it in private circles. 
 
 "We shall go to Switzerland, perhaps to Italy, for two or 
 three months, and then come back here again to my labors. If 
 you should be able to read my Lars within a month after getting 
 this, I should be glad to hear what impression it makes upon the 
 one v/ho was most in my mind as I wrote." 
 
 Whittier, in a letter 44 to Mrs. James T. Fields, says of Tay 
 lor s poem Lars: 
 
 "In regard to Bayard s poetry, I loved the man so much that 
 I could never criticise his verse. Lars is his best long poem. 
 It seems to me worthy of a place with Hermann and Dorothea 
 and Evangeline. But what a brave worker he was." 
 
 The manuscript of Taylor s German lecture, to which he 
 refers in the letter to Whittier, is now in the University of Penn 
 sylvania. The reference to Whittier in the lecture is as follows : 
 
 Amerikanische Dichter und Dichtkunst. 
 
 "Nicht weit davon am Ufer des Merrimacflusses (Con 
 cord, Mass.), steht ein bescheidenes Hauschen, bewohnt seit 
 vierzig Jahren von dem Quakerdichter Whittier, welcher wieder- 
 holt glanzende politische Auszeichnungen ausgeschlagen hat, um 
 seiner Muse treu zu bleiben. Aber, werden sie vielleicht fragen, 
 sind wir Amerikaner f ahig diese Enthaltsamkeit zu wiirdigen ? Ja, 
 antworte ich, und ganz besonders, weil solche Auszeichnung mghr 
 gilt in einem Land, wo es keine erblichen Titel giebt. . . . Etwas 
 abseits von Boston, in der Nahe eines kleinen Fabrikstadtchens, 
 lebt Whittier, ein echter Quaker und ein echter Dichter. Er ist 
 eine merkwiirdige Erscheinung in unserer Literaturgeschichte. 
 An Feuer, Kraft und Kampfesdrang stehen seine Jugendgedichte 
 kaum denen von Korner nach. Er war ein Peter der Eremit, der 
 den ganzen Norden zum Kreuzzug gegen die Sclaverei aufrief. 
 
 43 This translation is by Adolph Strodtman and is in his Amerikanische 
 Anthologie, Leipzig, page 124. 
 
 44 The original letter is in possession of Mrs. Annie Fields, Boston Mass. 
 The letter is dated Amesbury 27, 9 mo., but the year is not given. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 41 
 
 Unerschrocken, unermiidet ertrug er Missachtung, Schimpf und 
 Spott ; f iinf undzwanzig Jahre lang ward ihm nur von einem klei- 
 nen Kreise seiner Kampf- und Glaubensgenossen Anerkennung 
 zu Theil, bis endlich die Macht der Sclaverei den Schritt wagte, 
 der zu ihrem Untergang fiihrte. Dann mit einem Male stand 
 Whittier s Name leuchtend vor den Augen der Nation. Aber 
 nichts vermochte ihn aus seiner Zuriickgezogenheit zu ziehen. 
 Die angebotenen Ehren lehnte er ab; Ruhm und Reichtum such- 
 ten ihn auf , anderten aber in keiner Hinsicht sein einfaches Leben. 
 Oft habe ich unter seinem Dache geruht, oft seiner tiefen, inni- 
 gen Stimme gelauscht, und in seine reine, herrliche Seele ge- 
 schaut. 
 
 "Gross, schlank, mit hoher, schmaler Stirn und feurigen, 
 dunkeln Augen, kommt er mir immer vor wie ein Araberhaupt- 
 lirig. Er ist jetzt vierundsechzig Jahre alt, aber die Flamme sei 
 ner Begeisterung, wenn auch ruhiger, brennt noch immer. Seine 
 spatesten Gedichte sind seine vollkommensten, und so lang er 
 lebt, wird er dichten. 
 
 "Besonders hat Whittier unsere Literatur durch vaterlandi- 
 sche Balladen bereichert. Die karge Romantik unseres Kiisten- 
 landes hat er vor der Vergessenheit bewahrt. Skandinavische 
 Vikings, franzosische Ritter, spanische Abenteuerer und ernste 
 Puritaner sind in seinen Strophen verherrlicht, und durch ihn 
 sind ihre Thaten Gemeingut des Volkes geworden. Ich muss 
 mich wundern, dass eine Sammlung dieser Balladen nicht schon 
 langst in deutscher Ubersetzung erschienen ist. Seine Schilderun- 
 gen sind hochst lebendig und malerisch, und seine Sprache hat 
 eine seltene Melodic. Ein so echter Quaker er ist, verschwindet 
 jede Spur des niichternen Quakerwesens, sobald sein Geist sich 
 dichterisch bewegt. Ich habe nur eine Ubersetzung gefunden, 
 welche seine Lyrik geniigend charakterisirt den Gesang der 
 Sklaven in der Wilste. Da das Gedicht kurz ist, werde ich es 
 Ihnen vorelsen; das Wort Rubie, welches in dem Refrain vor- 
 kommt, ist arabisch, und bedeutet Mein GottV 
 
 Taylor speaks again of this lecture on American Literature 
 
42 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 given by him later in Weimar, in a letter 45 to E. C. Stedman, 
 dated Gotha, January 16, 1874. 
 
 "My lecture was a great triumph. It was given in the hall 
 of the Arquebusiers, a society dating from the Middle Ages. 
 The whole court came, Grand-Duke and Duchess, Hereditary 
 Grand-Duke and Duchess, the two charming Princesses, and 
 Prince Hermann, with adjutants and ladies of honor. The 
 Grand-Duke came up to me with a mock reproach, and said: 
 There s one serious fault in the lecture : you have not mentioned 
 yourself! But come and dine with me tomorrow and we ll talk 
 about it, which I did. The dinner was superb; two Weimar 
 friends of mine were invited, otherwise only the family. I 
 assure you it gave me a thrill of pride to stand in Weimar, with 
 the grand-children of Carl August, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and 
 Wieland among my auditors, and vindicate the literary achieve 
 ment of America. I lashed properly the German idea of the 
 omnipotency of money among us ; recited passages from Halleck, 
 Poe, Emerson, Bryant, and Whittier, and said a good word for 
 E. C. S., R. H. S., T. B. A., and W. D. H. The lecture seems to 
 have made considerable impression, as an account of it has since 
 gone the rounds of most of the German papers." 
 
 For Whittier s seventieth birthday The Literary World pub 
 lished in its columns tributes from authors all over the country. 
 Among these was a poem from Taylor called A Friend s 
 Greeting * Q 
 
 In Whittier s Prose works 47 is a fitting memorial of their 
 friendship which was read at the Bayard Taylor memorial meet 
 ing in Tremont Temple, Boston, January 10, 1879, the year after 
 the latter s death. 48 
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM (1872). 
 
 Whittier was no doubt led to choose the Founder of Ger- 
 mantown as the subject of so long a poem, because of the im- 
 
 45 Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, by M. H. Taylor arid H. E. Scudder, 
 page 640. 
 
 49 This poem may be found in Taylor s Poetical Works, Household Edi 
 tion, Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., 
 page 206. 
 
 47 Riverside Edition, Vol. II, page 281. 
 
 * 8 Taylor died November 19, 1878, while serving as Minister to Germany. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 43 
 
 portant fact, that the first protest against slavery in America 
 came from the Germantown Friends of whom Pastorius was the 
 leader. 
 
 In his long note 49 to the poem, Whittier gives as a further 
 reason for his choosing Pastorius as theme : 
 
 The Pilgrims of Plymouth have not lacked historian and 
 poet. Justice has been done to their faith, courage, and self- 
 sacrifice and to the mighty influence of their endeavors to estab 
 lish righteousness on the earth. The Quaker pilgrims of Penn 
 sylvania, seeking the same object by different means, have not 
 been equally fortunate. The power of their testimony for truth 
 and holiness, peace and freedom, enforced only by what Milton 
 calls v the irresistible might of meekness, has been felt through 
 two centuries in the amelioration of penal severities, the abolition 
 of slavery, the reform of the erring, the relief of the poor and 
 suffering, felt, in brief, in every step of human progress. But 
 of the men themselves, with the single exception of William 
 Penn, scarcely anything is known. . . ./Yet it must be ap 
 parent to every careful observer of the progress of American 
 civilization that its two principal currents had their sources in 
 the entirely opposite directions of the Puritan and Quaker 
 colonies." 
 
 "The poet is very merciful toward the Massachusetts 
 Puritan, when he has to bring them into contrast with these 
 Pennsylvania Quakers, his kindness even prompting him to 
 charge something of the intolerant temper of the Puritans to 
 the Boston East winds, whose fretting and demoralizing influence 
 they had to bear. The Philadelphia skies were tender and 
 caressing." 50 
 
 Why he gave the poem the New England title of Pilgrim 
 and ignored the name of Pastorius, we know from letters which 
 he wrote to his publisher, James R. Osgood, May 24, 1872: 
 
 "I am half inclined to think it would be best to print my 
 poem, a part of which I showed thee, in a volume by itself. It 
 
 "Cambridge Edition of J. G. Whittier s Poems, page 519. 
 50 Eulogy by Edwin D. Mead, in Memorial of J. G. Whittier from Haver- 
 hill, Mass., 1893. 
 
44 Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 contains about five hundred lines, divided into verses of three 
 lines, and with the introduction and notes will make nearly fifty 
 pages, or about the size of Snow Bound. I have added a good 
 deal to it and, I think, made it a better poem. I think honestly it is 
 as good (if not better than) any other long poem I have written. 
 But if thee prefer to print a larger volume, including my shorter 
 poems, I will not insist. I shall call it The Gefmantown Pilgrim. 
 It is now ready for the press save the addition of a few notes." 51 
 
 In a letter to Osgood, June, 1872, Whittier says: 
 
 "Fields thinks it would be better to entitle it Pastorius of 
 Pennsylvania . I am not sure about it. He objects to the word 
 Germantown . We might call it The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, a 
 rather pleasant sounding alliteration." 52 And so the poem was 
 called. 
 
 Whittier gives in the note to the poem a sketch of Pastorius 
 life, also short sketches of Eleanora von Merlau, Johann Kelpius, 
 Peter Sluyter and others. His sources for the poem, he tells us, 
 were Professor Oswald Seidensticker s papers in Der Deutsche 
 Pioneer^ and The Penn Monthly. The latter, in its Book Re 
 views for November, 1872, mentions also as Whittier s sources 
 the articles on The German Mystics as American Colonists?* by 
 Robert Ellis Thompson, which also appeared in it pages. 
 
 These articles were probably about all the information that 
 Whittier had of the German settlers of Germantown, except 
 what he found in the writings of some of the early Quakers. 
 The teachings of Boehme and the doctrines of the earlier mystics 
 he undoubtedly knew better, as he had already shown his interest 
 in them in his poem of Tauler in 1853. 
 
 The Book Review referred to above says : 
 
 "The poem has all the usual characteristic marks of Whit- 
 tier s works, except that its form does not bring into play his 
 
 61 S. T. Pickard s Life of J. G. Whittier, pages 575-576. 
 
 62 Pickard s Life of J. G. Whittier, note to page 576. 
 
 53 The articles referred to appeared in Der Deutsche Pioneer in March, 
 April and May, 1872, and in the Penn Monthly in January and February, 1872. 
 
 54 These articles appeared in August, September and October numbers of 
 the Penn Monthly for 1871. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 45 
 
 highest power. Mr. Whittier is, above all things, a lyric poet, the 
 greatest in America." 
 
 It praises the poem from a literary standpoint, but criticises 
 it from the historical side as showing Pastor ius life as smooth 
 and without hardships, as if it had been one hundred and fifty 
 years later ; as bringing Spener and Eleanore von Merlau as co- 
 workers with Pastorius, when in reality they were more closely 
 in sympathy with Kelpius and his followers ; as describing Schum- 
 berg as a student of the Vedas a century before any European 
 scholar was aware of their existence, and that the epithet familist 
 as applied to the Labidist Sluyter was historically incorrect. It 
 excuses him, however, by saying: 
 
 "But these slight blemishes are less culpable in the poet than 
 they would be in the historian, and, as Pennsylvanians, we take 
 the whole book 55 with thanks to the author." 
 
 We expect a poet to depart from history to suit his muse, 
 but for some of the inaccuracies in the poem and in the notes, re 
 garding Pastorius and Germantown, Whittier is not to blame, as 
 many things have been brought to light on the subject of Pas 
 torius and the Germantown settlers, by Professor Marion D. 
 Learned of the University of Pennsylvania, Ex-Governor Samuel 
 W. Pennypacker and others, since Professor Seidensticker wrote 
 his papers. 
 
 The Rector of the Latin School at Windsheim, Germany, 
 where Pastorius 56 remained until he was ready for the Uni 
 versity, was Tobias Schumberg, who became Pastorius life-long 
 friend. Whittier calls him Schurmberg. This, however, is 
 Whittier s spelling, as Seidensticker spells the name correctly. 
 
 "And learned Schurmberg, fain, at times, to look 
 
 From Talmud, Koran, Veds, and Pentateuch, 
 Sought out his pupil in his far-off nook, 
 
 To query with him of climatic change, 
 
 Of bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range, 
 Of flowers and fruits and simples new and strange. 
 
 55 The Pennsylvania Pilgrim and Other Poems, by John Greenleaf Whit 
 tier. Boston : James Osgood & Company. Philadelphia : Porter & Coates. 1872. 
 66 Francis Daniel Pastorius. the founder of Germantown, was born in 
 
46 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 In his note, Whittier says: "At the age of seventeen he 
 entered the University of Altdorf. He studied law at Strass- 
 burg, Basle, and Jena; and at Ratisbon, the seat of the Imperial 
 Government, obtained a practical knowledge of international 
 polity. Successful in all his examinations and disputations, he 
 received the degree of Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676." 
 This Whittier has taken almost verbatim from Seidensticker. 
 Pastorius, 57 after leaving Jena, sojourned for a time in Regens- 
 burg, where he had an opportunity to study the practice of the 
 Imperial Code, as the Imperial diet was convened in Regensburg 
 at that time. In 1676 he received his doctor s diploma at the 
 University of Altdorf. This was the university for the city of 
 Niirnberg but it was situated at Altdorf. Whittier refers to Alt 
 dorf s "Burschensong" in his poem: 
 
 "He sang not; but if sometimes tempted strong, 
 
 He hummed what seemed like Altdorf s Burschen-song, 
 His good wife smiled and did not count it wrong. 
 
 For well he loved his boyhood s brother band ; 
 His memory, while he trod the New World s strand, 
 A double-ganger walked the Fatherland !" 
 
 The Burschen-song, to which Whittier refers, may have been 
 suggested by the song which Professor Seidensticker published in 
 Der Deutsche Pioneer August, 1871, with other poems of Pas 
 torius and which begins : 
 
 "Darf man dich Corinna kiissen? 
 
 So komm mein Liebchen zu mir her, 
 Ich werd es wohl am besten wissen, 
 
 Das war die Ant wort ungefahr 
 Sie lieffe zwar und sagte: Nein! 
 
 Und gab sich doch gecluldig drein." 
 
 After practicing law in Windsheim for about two years and 
 a half, he went to Frankfurt in 1679, where he was introduced 
 
 Sommerhausen, Germany, September 26, 1651, and died in 1719 or 1720, at 
 Germantown, Pa. 
 
 87 Learned s Pastorius, page 76. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 47 
 
 immediately into the Spener circle. Through Dr. Spener he 
 became tutor to von Bodeck and journeyed with him 1680-1682 
 through Holland, England, France, Switzerland and a part of 
 upper Germany. Seidensticker calls him von Rodeck 58 and 
 Whittier has of course the same spelling in his poem. He speaks 
 of the Indian chiefs as: 
 
 "Like bronzes in his friend von Rodeck s hall." 
 
 In 1677, William Penn, in company with George Fox, Robert 
 Barclay, and several other Friends, went to Holland and Germany 
 and coming along the Rhine, stopped at Frankfurt. This visit 
 of Penn made a deep impression upon the Pietistic circle in 
 Frankfurt. 59 Eleanora von Merlau, a member of this circle, was 
 especially enthusiastic over the meetings held by the Friends. 
 
 Whittier s reference to von Merlau in the poem is : 
 
 "As once he heard in sweet von Merlau s bowers 
 
 Fair as herself, in boyhood s happy hours, 
 The pious Spener read his creed in flowers." 
 
 And again: 
 
 "Or, now and then, the missive of some friend 
 In gray Altorf or storied Niirnberg penned, 
 Dropped in upon him like a guest to spend 
 
 "The night beneath his roof-tree. Mystical 
 
 The fair von Merlau spake as waters fall 
 And voices sound in dreams, and yet withal 
 
 "Human and sweet, as if each far, low tone, 
 
 Over the roses of her garden blown, 
 Brought the warm sense of beauty all her own." 
 
 58 "The mistake is due evidently to the rather indistinct passage in the 
 Beehive, where the initial R is written so close to the line that it is difficult 
 to determine whether the initial letter in this case is R or B . The other 
 occurrences of the name in the Beehive, and particularly in the Res Propiae, 
 however, clearly show the form to be Bodeck . . . . Furthermore, it has 
 been impossible to find the name Rodeck in most of the genealogical or 
 heraldic sources, while the name Bodeck is much in evidence." Learned s 
 Pastorius, page 91. 
 
 69 Learned s Pastorius, page 106. 
 
48 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 In 1 68 1, Penn was made proprietor of the province of Penn 
 sylvania and invited his German friends in Holland 60 and along 
 the Rhine to settle there, opening the way for a place to worship 
 in peace in a new world. Pastorius fell in with the scheme, as 
 the frivolous life of the old world that he had just experienced 
 had failed to satisfy him. The result was that he w r as made 
 agent with power of attorney to purchase land for the company 
 in Pennsylvania; and in London 61 between May 8 and June 6, 
 1683, bought fifteen thousand acres of land for the Frankfurt 
 Company and sailed for America June 6, 1683, landing in Phil 
 adelphia 62 August 20. 
 
 Penn issued a warrant to Pastorius for six thousand acres 
 on the east side of the Schuylkill and this the latter divided 
 equally between the German and Crefeld 63 settlers. The Cre- 
 f elders, coming from near the borders of Holland, had low 
 German names. Whittier refers to them in the poem: 
 
 "Or, talking of old home scenes, Op der Graaf 
 Teased the low back-log with his shodden staff, 
 Till the red embers broke into a laugh." 
 
 New settlers of the various German sects along the Rhine 
 arrived and the colony grew. There were amongst their num 
 bers Quakers, Mennonites and Bunkers. Whittier mentions all 
 these different sects in his poem. The Frankfurt Company, how 
 ever, did not keep its promise of following its agent to the 
 New World and Pastorius finally grew tired of the financial 
 obligations he had assumed and sent in his resignation. In his 
 place the company appointed Daniel Falkner, Johannes Jawert 
 and Johannes Kelpius. 64 The latter was a dreamer and entirely 
 
 60 In 1833 Whittier wrote a story of this visit of Penn to Germany and 
 Holland called The Proselytes, which may be found in his Prose Works, Vol. 
 I, page 305, Riv. Ed. 
 
 61 Learned s Pastorius, page no. 
 "Learned s Pastorius, page 117. 
 
 83 The Crefelders who arrived on the 6th of October were mostly Men 
 nonites from Crefeld and did not belong to the Frankfurt Company. 
 
 64 The cave in which Kelpius lived on the Wissahickon is still pointed out 
 by the people of Germantown. Being slight and delicate, he could not endure 
 the rigors of such a life and died of consumption in 1708. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 49 
 
 unfit for such a position and did not wish to serve. He is one of 
 the most interesting characters of the early settlers of German- 
 town and was known as "The Hermit of the Wissahickon". The 
 little band of mystics to which he belonged arrived in Phila 
 delphia in 1694 and were given a plot of ground on the ridge of 
 the Wissahickon. They called themselves The Contented of 
 the God-loving Soul? * but since they maintained that the sixth 
 verse of the twelfth chapter of Revelations indicated, when 
 properly interpreted, the near approach of the coming of Christ, 
 the name given to them, by those who surrounded them, was The 
 Society of the Woman in the Wilderness. They believed that 
 the state of celibacy was far holier than marriage, did not believe 
 in infant-baptism and were always wailing and looking for the 
 millenium. 
 
 Whittier says of him : 
 
 "Or painful Kelpius from his hermit den 
 
 By Wissahickon, maddest of good men, 
 Dreamed o er the Chiliast 66 dreams of Petersen. 
 
 "Deep in the woods, where the small river slid 
 
 Snake-like in shade, the Helmstadt mystic hid, 
 Weird as a wizard, over arts forbid, 
 
 "Reading the books of Daniel and of John, 
 
 And Behmen s Morning-Redness, through the Stone 
 Of Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone, 
 
 "Whereby he read what man ne er read before, 
 
 And saw the visions man shall see no more, 
 Till the great angel, striding sea and shore, 
 
 "Shall bid all flesh await, on land or ships, 
 The warning trump of the Apocalypse, 
 Shattering the heavens before the dread eclipse." 
 
 Pastorius, with his learning and experience, was well fitted 
 to be the leading man in the affairs of the community ; and from 
 the records we see that he was so regarded. 
 
 65 Pennypacker s Germantown, page 217. 
 
 88 Chiliast is a term applied to those who believe in the millenium. 
 
50 Whittler s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 As he does not mention his joining the Society of Friends, 
 and there seems to be no record of the fact, the question 
 has been raised as to whether he really did join them. Whittier 
 certainly considered him a member of the society and it seems to 
 me he was right in his assumption, as the records were not 
 always strictly kept in the early days. He would certainly not 
 have been appointed a delegate from the Abington Monthly Meet 
 ing to attend the Quarterly Meeting, as he was in 1703 and in 
 1715, unless he had been a member of the society; nor would his 
 children s births be recorded in the records of the Abington 
 Monthly Meeting if this had not been the case, as none but mem 
 bers of the meeting are appointed delegates or have births 
 recorded in meeting records. From his interest in the doctrines 
 of Boehme and Spener, it was not a very great change to that of 
 the Friends, as the two have many things in common. Especially 
 close were the resemblance between the beliefs of the Friends 
 and many of the teachings of Boehme. They both believed in 
 following the guidance of the Inner Light, in simplicity of life, 
 and in inspiration. Many of the early Quakers had read transla 
 tions of Boehme s Morgenrothe and were influenced by it. Beh- 
 men is the name by which he is known to many of the English 
 readers and Whittier uses this form of the name. 
 
 Of Pastorius faith Whittier says: 
 
 "I sing the blue-eyed German Spener taught, 
 
 Through whose veiled, mystic faith the Inward light, 
 Steady and still, an easy brightness, shone, 
 Transfiguring all things in its radiance white. 
 
 "For, by the lore of Gorlitz gentle sage, 
 
 With the mild mystics of his dreamy age 
 He read the herbal signs of nature s page, 
 
 "Yet not less, when once the vision passed, 
 
 He held the plain and sober maxims fast 
 Of the dear Friends with whom his lot was cast. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 51 
 
 "And evermore, beneath this outward sense, 
 
 And through the common sequence of events, 
 
 He felt the guiding hand of Providence 
 
 i 
 
 "Reach out. of space. A Voice spake in his ear, 
 
 And lo ! all other voices far and near 
 Died at that whisper, full of meanings clear. 
 
 "The Light of Life shone round him ; one by one 
 
 The wandering lights, that all-misleading run, 
 Went out like candles paling in the sun. 
 
 "That Light he followed, step by step, wher er 
 
 It led, as in the vision of the seer 
 The wheels moved as the spirit in the clear 
 
 "And terrible crystal moved, with all their eyes 
 
 Watching the living splendor sink or rise 
 Its will their will, knowing no otherwise. 
 
 "Within himself he found the law of right, 
 
 He walked by faith and not the letter s sight, 
 And read his Bible by the Inward Light." 
 
 In 1688, as has been mentioned, the Friends of German- 
 town drew up a protest against slavery 67 and sent it to the 
 Monthly Meeting. The protest is in Pastorius handwriting, 
 though he may not have formulated all the wording of it. 
 
 Whittier tells in the beginning of the poem, through Pas 
 torius conversation with his wife, of the reception in the meeting 
 of this protest, and of Pastorius discouragement at the result : 
 
 "Again she looked : between green walls of shade, 
 
 With low-bent head as if with sorrow weighed, 
 Daniel Pastorius slowly came and said, 
 
 " God s peace be with thee, Anna! 68 Then he stood 
 
 Silent before her, wrestling with the mood 
 Of one who sees the evil and not good 
 
 " What is it, my Pastorius? As she spoke, 
 
 A slow, faint smile across his features broke, 
 Sadder than trees. Dear heart, he said, our folk 
 
 Pennypacker s Gennantown, page 145. 
 
 The name of Pastorius s wife was Ennecke. 
 
52 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 " Are even as others. Yea, our goodliest Friends 
 
 Are frail, our elders have their selfish ends, 
 And few dare trust the Lord to make amends 
 
 "For duty s loss. So even our feeble word 
 
 For the dumb slaves the startled meeting heard 
 As if a stone its quiet waters stirred; 
 
 "And, as the clerks ceased reading, there began 
 
 A ripple of dissent which downward ran 
 In widening circles, as from man to man. 
 
 "Somewhat was said of running before sent, 
 
 Of tender fear that some their guide outwent, 
 Troublers of Israel. I was scarce intent 
 
 "On hearing, for behind the reverend row 
 
 Of gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous show 
 I saw, methought, dark faces full of woe 
 
 "And in the spirit I was taken where 
 
 They toiled and suffered, I was made aware 
 Of shame and wrath and anguish and despair ! 
 
 "And while the meeting smothered our poor plea 
 
 With cautious phrase, A Voice there seemed to be, 
 As ye have done to these ye do to me ! 
 
 "So it all passed, and the old tithe went on 
 
 Of anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun 
 Set, leaving still the weightier work undone. 
 
 "Help, for the good man faileth ! Who is strong, 
 
 If these be weak? Who shall rebuke the wrong, 
 If these consent? How long, O Lord ! how long! 
 
 "He ceased, and, bound in spirit with the bound, 
 
 With folded arms, and eyes that sought the ground, 
 Walked musingly his little garden round." 
 
 Whittier speaks also of this protest in John IVoohnan s 
 Journal. 
 
 Pastorius, in his busy life of lawyer, town clerk, and school 
 master, 70 found time to write many valuable books and tracts. 
 
 69 Prose Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, page 321. 
 
 T Pastorius taught in the Friends School in Philadelphia. 1698-1700. In 
 1702, a school was opened in Germantown and was also taught by him. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 53 
 
 Of Pastorius printed books, the most interesting are perhaps 
 his Primmer and his Description of Pennsylvania. Some of his 
 most important works have never been published ; amongst these, 
 the Beehive, one of the most interesting and extensive works of 
 the Colonial period, is an encyclopedia of knowledge, composed 
 for the use of his children. The title was written in seven lan 
 guages. 
 
 The references to Pastorius literary labors are as follows : 
 
 "And when the bitter north wind, keen and swift 
 
 Swept the white street and piled the door-yard drift, 
 He exercised, as Friends might say, his gift 
 
 "Of verse, Dutch, English, Latin, like the hash 
 
 Of corn and beans in Indian succotash; 
 Dull, doubtless, but with here and there a flash 
 
 "Of wit and fine conceit, the good man s play 
 
 Of quiet fancies, meet to while away 
 The slow hours measuring off an idle day. 
 
 "At evening, while his wife put on her look 
 
 Of love s endurance, from its niche he took 
 The written pages of his ponderous book. 
 
 "And read, in half the languages of man, 
 
 His Rusca Apium which with bees began, 
 And through the gamut of creation ran." 
 
 The Grund und Lager Buch is most interesting perhaps to 
 us, since Pastorius Latin address to posterity has been immortal 
 ized by Whittier, by his translation 71 of it in The Pennsylvania 
 Pilgrim. 
 
 He introduces his poem with this translation : 
 
 "Hail to posterity ! 
 Hail, future men of Germanopolis ! 
 Let the young generations yet to be 
 Look kindly upon this. 
 
 71 The Latin address from which Whittier made his translation may be 
 found in Professor Seidensticker s article in the Penn Monthly for January, 
 1872. 
 
54 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Think how your fathers left their native land, 
 
 Dear German-land ! O sacred hearths and homes ! 
 And, where the wild beast roams, 
 
 In patience planned 
 New forest-homes beyond the mighty sea, 
 
 There undisturbed and free 
 To live as brothers of one family. 
 
 What pains and cares befell, 
 What trials and what fears, 
 Remember, and wherein we have done well 
 
 Follow our footsteps, men of coming years! 
 
 Where we have failed to do 
 
 Aright, or wisely live, 
 Be warned by us, the better way pursue, 
 And, knowing we were human, even as you, 
 Pity us and forgive! 
 
 Farewell, Posterity! 
 
 Farewell, dear Germany! 
 
 Forevermore farewell !" 
 
 In a letter to the President of Haverford College at the 
 time of its Semi-Centennial in 1884, Whittier shows his appre 
 ciation of the founders of "the State of Pennsylvania Penn, 
 Lloyd, Pastorius, Logan, and Story; men who were masters of 
 the scientific knowledge and culture of their age, hospitable to all 
 truth, and open to all light, and who in some instances anticipated 
 the result of modern research and critical inquiry." 72 
 
 Among the letters in Whittier s home in Amesbury, Mass., 
 is an unpublished letter from George Bunsen 73 to his aunt, Mrs. 
 Gurney, mentioning The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, from which I 
 quote the following extract : 
 
 "i2th August, 1873. 
 
 "A delay of several months has occurred before I obtained 
 possession of your beautiful present of a late volume by Mr. John 
 G. Whittier. When my sister, Jane Gurney, wrote from our house 
 at Berlin, mentioning the interest we had all felt in extracts from 
 The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and in fact of a German having been 
 
 72 Whittier, Prose Works, Riverside Ed., Vol. Ill, page 362. 
 
 " George Bunsen was the son of Baron Christian Bunsen, who from 1841 
 to 1854 was German Ambassador to England. An older son of Baron Bunsen 
 married an Englishwoman, Elizabeth Gurney, niece of Elizabeth Fry. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 55 
 
 among the very first to boldly demand the liberation of negro 
 slaves, we none of us supposed that poem to have come out in so 
 splendid a garb as that in which I now see it lying before me." 
 
 In the chapter on Bayard Taylor, the correspondence be 
 tween the two poets about the "Pennsylvania Pilgrim" and "Lars" 
 has already been discussed. 
 
 HYMN OF THE BUNKERS. 
 
 Whittier s Hymn of the Dunkers appeared in The Atlantic 
 Monthly for May, 1877. 
 The hymn begins : 
 
 Kloster Kedar, Ephrata, Pa., 1738. 
 
 Sister Maria Christina sings : 
 
 "Wake, sisters, wake ! the day star shines ; 
 
 Above Ephrata s eastern pines 
 The dawn is breaking, cool and calm. 
 
 Wake, sisters, wake! to prayer and psalm! 
 
 "Praised be the Lord for shade and light, 
 
 For toil by day, for rest by night ! 
 Praised be His name who deigns to bless 
 Our Kedar of the Wilderness!" 
 
 A few words as to the Bunkers and their peculiar music will 
 help understand Whittier s hymn. 
 
 The Bunker Church had its origin at Schwarzenau, Ger 
 many, in 1708, and was the outcome of the pietistic movements of 
 the seventeenth century. One branch of these people in 1715 
 fled to Crefeld, Prussia, and under the leadership of Peter Becker 
 came to Germantown in 1719, the first company of Bunkers to 
 come to America. 
 
 The name Bunker (Tunker) comes from the verb tunken, 
 modern German taufen, to dip, baptize from their belief in 
 "trine" immersion (triple immersion). 
 
 Other doctrines 74 peculiar to this sect are : Feet-washing, as 
 taught in John xiii ; The Love Feast, or Lord s Supper ; The Holy 
 Kiss, or Salutation ; Plain Bress ; and the doctrine of Peace. 
 
 74 See History of the German Baptist Brethren, by Dr. M. G. Brumbaugh, 
 1890, page 555- 
 
56 W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 In 1723, Peter Becker organized the scattered members of 
 the Society about Germantown into a united body. 
 
 An early secession from the General body of Bunkers was 
 that of the Seventh-Day Dunkers, whose distinctive principle was 
 that the Seventh-Day was the true Sabbath. Their founder was 
 Conrad Beissel (1690-1768), a baker from Eberbach, Germany. 
 He came to Germantown in 1720 and after serving apprentice 
 ship as a weaver with Becker, he went to live as a hermit in the 
 wilderness of Conestoga County, Pennsylvania, near the Cocalico. 
 In his beliefs he was much more mystical than his friends in 
 Germantown. He also laid great stress on the holiness of 
 celibacy. The sect of which he was leader was founded in 1725 
 and in 1735 established into a semi-monastic community of the 
 "Order of Solitary" at Ephrata in Lancaster County. There was 
 a house for the brothers and one for the sisters. There were 
 also some married couples among the congregation, but they 
 were looked upon as much less holy than the others. Beissel, as 
 the Vorsteher or overseer of the community, was given the name 
 of father "Friedsam Gottrecht". He ruled the community with 
 an iron hand and at his death the society began to decline. 
 
 A monastic dress was adopted by the brethren and sisters 
 resembling that of the Capuchins. 
 
 " At one time the Society included about three hundred mem 
 bers. The brothers engaged in printing, book-binding, tanning 
 and quarrying. There was also a saw-mill and a pottery. The 
 sisters did embroidery, quilting and engrossing in a beautiful 
 hand. 
 
 An interesting account of the peculiar music and singing 
 schools at Ephrata may be found in the Chronicon Ephratense, 
 History of the Community of Seventh-Day Baptists, by Lamech 
 and Agrippa. Translated by Max Hark, Lancaster, Pa., 1889, 
 Chapter XXIV. 
 
 Many of these hymns were religious love lyrics expressing 
 the glowing longing of the soul for the heavenly bridegroom. 
 
 The earliest hymn and music books of the Ephrata com 
 munity 75 were all laboriously and carefully executed with the 
 75 Sachse, Music of the Ephrata Cloister, page 33. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 57 
 
 pen. These were supplanted by the hymn-books printed for their 
 use by Franklin in 1730, 1732, and 1736, and Sauer in 1739. The 
 latter book was known as the Weyrauchs Hilgel. Shortly after 
 the large printing press was established in the institution on the 
 Cocalico, it was proposed to issue a distinctive original hymn- 
 book for the uses of both the solitary and secular organizations ; 
 all of the compositions being the work of the inmates of the 
 Kloster and set to tunes of their own. This resulted in the issue 
 in 1747 of the Turtel-Taube, containing some two hundred and 
 seventy-seven hymns. About two-thirds of the hymns were con 
 tributed by Conrad Beissel 75a . This was the first original hymn- 
 book printed at Ephrata. 
 
 Amongst the unpublished letters to Whittier in the posses 
 sion of Mr. Pickard at Amesbury, Mass., is one from a Penn 
 sylvania German, of Quincy, Franklin County, Obed Snow- 
 berger by name, making inquiries of Whittier as to the sources 
 of his hymn. The letter is dated Quincy, Franklin County, Penn 
 sylvania, December 31, 1888: 
 
 "I saw that hymn of the Bunkers in the papers. I wondered 
 very much how you came into possession of it. I have the Ephrata 
 books. The hymn is Ephrata tone. 76 There was a Quaker lady 
 among the sisters at Ephrata, but the name is not given. I have 
 had to wonder a good deal how you succeeded to render an 
 Ephrata hymn so very correctly in English language. I have 
 been written to about it and could not tell anything definite. I 
 should be very glad to have a short historical sketch of the hymn. 
 The hymn I send I translated myself. I do not know of any other 
 two hymns of similar length being translated into the English 
 language. Should the hymn I send be worth printing in any 
 periodical, I would not want anything more than a copy of the 
 paper. 
 
 75a Beissel s most important hymn book was the Paradiesisches IVundcr- 
 sfiel, 1754. Another edition, 1766. There were two later editions of the 
 Turtel-Taube, 1755 and 1762. In 1756, Rosen und Lilen Aus der Schwester 
 lichen Gesellschaft in Saron und aus der Briiderlichen Gesellschaft in Be- 
 thania. The last hymn book printed by the Ephrata Community was Ausbund 
 Geistreichcr Lieder, 1785. 
 
 The writing here was indistinct and I am not sure this was the word. 
 
58 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "If desired by the publisher, I might distribute a number of 
 copies. So far as the Institute is concerned we are out of danger. 
 I think the papers we have had printed will end the law-suit. 
 "Yours Respect., 
 
 "OBED SNOWBERGER." 
 
 I have not been able to get hold of Whittier s reply to this 
 letter, as the family of Obed Snowberger seem to know noth 
 ing about his writing to Whittier. Inasmuch as Mr. Julius F. 
 Sachse, of Philadelphia, claims to have most of the manuscripts 
 of Obed Snowberger, the letter, if it still exists, is probably in his 
 possession, and since I was unable to get access to these manu 
 scripts, the matter still remains unsettled. 
 
 According to Sachse s Appendix to the German Sectarians of 
 1^42, Obed Snowberger was thoroughly familiar with the 
 Ephrata music. He was born in 1823 and was a member of the 
 Snow Hill community of Bunkers established at Franklin County, 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Among the books in Whittier s library was the work of 
 Phebe Earle Gibbons, Pennsylvania Dutch and Other Essays, edi 
 tion of 1872, and as Whittier s poem was written in 1877, he very 
 likely took the name of the sister from this book for his hymn. 
 
 She tells that, "while Beissel was dwelling in his solitary 
 cot about the year 1730, two married women joined the Society, 
 who according to The Ephrata Chronicle, left their husbands and 
 placed themselves under the head of the director (or Vorsteher, 
 the title applied to Beissel in the Chronicle). One of these was 
 Maria Christina, wife of Christopher Sauer, who afterwards 
 established the celebrated German printing office at German- 
 town." 77 
 
 In the Ephrata Register in Sachse s 78 German Sectarians, 
 this sister seems to be the only one of that name in the list, though 
 there were several Marias and one Christianne. 
 
 In spite of Obed Snowberger s letter, I am inclined to think 
 that Whittier s hymn is not an exact translation of any one of 
 
 77 Page 141. 
 
 78 Sachse s German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1742-1800. Philadelphia, 
 1900, pages 485-517- 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 59 
 
 the hymns in the Ephrata books; this is also the opinion of Mr. 
 James Warrington, who is an authority on the Ephrata music. 
 Though neither Mr. Warrington nor myself could find any one 
 hymn that we could say was used as the model for Whittier s, 
 yet a number contained some of the thoughts expressed in his 
 poem. Whittier has not called it a translation. This is another 
 reason for thinking it is not meant to be a translation but an 
 attempt to give voice to the religious sentiments of the sect about 
 whom he was writing. 
 
 The Penn Monthly, in a review of Whittier s Vision of 
 Echard, 79 does not think that he does voice these sentiments. The 
 review says : "Just as untrue to history is the picture of the 
 thoughts and aspirations of the Ephrata Cloister in the Bunker s 
 Hymn. The whole weft and woof of the poem is Quakerly. A 
 Bunker mystic would not have singled out Rome and Geneva 
 as the embodiment of the ecclesiasticism against which they pro 
 tested. And it is to be hoped that they would have been too 
 truthful to allude to prison and the stake as among the experi 
 ences of the sect founded by Alexander Mack. Their adventism 
 is the only point on which Mr. Whittier catches the character of 
 the sect; but that was of a mystical, theosophical type, widely 
 different from his picture of it." 
 
 Letter on Pennsylvania German Sects. 
 
 The following unpublished letter 80 of Sarah Orne Jewett to 
 Whittier, though written after the poet published his Pennsyl 
 vania German poems, is an interesting letter and worthy of being 
 quoted : 
 
 "Bethlehem, Pa., 22nd April, 1884. 
 
 "I wish you were here with us, we have spoken of you so 
 many times for though we were disappointed at first in finding 
 such a bustling town where we expected a rural neighborhood 
 we are more and more delighted with what we find of the old 
 Moravian settlement. One can easily pick it out from the newer 
 town, and the church and community houses are very interesting, 
 
 79 Vol. 10, page 236. 
 
 80 Original letter in possession of S. T. Pickard. 
 
60 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 but most of all the old burying ground. On one little stone we saw 
 an epitaph beside the record a very uncommon thing and found 
 that after the child s name it said : How did the Saviour look ? 
 "Right clean" was his reply. It was an old stone and this touched 
 us very much. It could only be a most simple and devout people 
 who had cherished the vision, and kept the simple words 
 Doesn t it make you think much of William Blake? We have 
 been this afternoon to the sisters house and saw some old em 
 broideries of the nuns manufacture and bought some candy of 
 the quaint little creature whose sister made it. They have an 
 atom of a shop in one end of their prim and threadbare best room. 
 The window was full of plants and the hinges of the doors were 
 fine old iron work and Sister Rose s world was so small that you 
 could have walked around it in an afternoon, if one side of it 
 wasn t bounded by heaven. There are beautiful high hills covered 
 with walnut and maple trees, but only the willows are very green 
 yet." 
 
 Whittier makes another reference to the German sects in 
 Pennsylvania in the introduction which he wrote to Stanley 
 Pumphrey s lecture on Indian Civilization:* 1 "The salutary influ 
 ence of the Moravians and Friends in Pennsylvania was greatly 
 weakened by the dreadful massacre of the unarmed and blame 
 less converts of Gnadenhutten." 82 
 
 MAUD MULLER (1854). 
 
 This ballad, composed about a German-American farmer s 
 daughter, was first published in The National Era of December 
 28, 1854. "To a correspondent who asked of him the pronuncia 
 tion of Muller , Whittier replied : . . . Pronounce the name 
 with either the Yankee or the German accent it matters not 
 which. (He always pronounced the V as in gull.)" 83 
 
 81 Indian Civilization, a lecture by Stanley Pumphrey, of England, with 
 Introduction by J. G. Whittier, 1877. 
 
 "Prose Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Riverside Edition, Vol. Ill, 
 page 233. 
 
 83 Pickard, Life and Letters, page 368. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 61 
 
 F. H. Underwood 84 says that the region about Longwood, 
 Pa., is probably the scene in which Maud Muller was located, but 
 Whittier s head-note to the poem explains its origin otherwise : 
 
 "The recollection of some descendants of a Hessian deserter 
 in the revolutionary war bearing the name of Muller doubtless 
 suggested the somewhat infelicitous title of a New England idyl. 
 The poem had no real foundation in fact, though a hint of it 
 may have been found in recalling an incident, trivial in itself, of 
 a journey on the picturesque Maine seaboard with my sister 
 some years before it was written. We had stopped to rest our 
 tired horse under the shade of an apple tree, and refresh him 
 with water from a little brook which rippled through the stone 
 wall across the road. A very beautiful young girl in scantest 
 summer attire was at work in the hay-field, and as we talked with 
 her we noticed that she strove to hide her bare feet by raking 
 hay over them, blushing as she did so, through the tan of her 
 cheek and neck." 85 
 
 Maud Muller is one of Whittier s most beautiful poems 
 and in fact one of the best in American poetry the simple 
 picture of the German farm girl, in 
 
 ". . . Her briar-torn gown, 
 And her graceful ankles bare and brown", 
 
 raking the sweet-scented hay, appeals to the hearts of all. 
 
 Eduard Engel says of this poem : "Whittier s Gabe der 
 romanzenartigen Erzahlung zeigt sich am schonsten in dem in 
 Amerika ungemein beliebten Gedicht, Maud Muller . Es erin- 
 nert gar nicht unvorteilhaft an gewisse gedichte Uhlands." 86 
 
 It has been translated four 86a times into German: by Adolf 
 
 84 John G. Whittier, by Francis H. Underwood. Boston, 1884. Footnote to 
 page 305. 
 
 80 Cambridge Edition of Poems, page 47. 
 
 88 Geschichte der Litteratur Nordamerikas, von Eduard Engel, Leipzig, 
 John Greenleaf Whittier, S. 20-24. 
 
 Ma Dr. Alfred I. Roehm in his dissertation, Bibliographie und Kritik der 
 deutschen Uebertragungen aus der amerikanischen Dichtung, Leipzig, 1910, 
 makes the statement that there are five translations. I have failed to find 
 the fifth, and Dr. Roehm does not now remember who the translator is, if it 
 exists. Owing to the European war, I have not had access to anthologies 
 which might have been available at other times ; but I have had access to all 
 those mentioned by Dr. Roehm as containing translations of Whittier. 
 
62 Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Strodtmann, 87 under the title Maud Midler; by J. Noroth, 88 en 
 titled Schon Katchen; by V. Beaulieu Marconnay, 89 with the title 
 Ann Muller; and by E. O. Hopp, 89a Maud Midler. 
 
 Of these translations, the best is the one by Noroth. Whit- 
 tier is at his best as a ballad writer in this poem, in his simplicity 
 and fervidness, and the translator has lost little of the beauty of 
 the original in translation. The last few verses well illustrate 
 this: 
 
 "Du armes Madchen, von Elend geplagt, 
 Du armer Reicher, von Reue benagt ! 
 
 "Hilf uns Allen, O Gott, denn wir rufen das Gliick 
 Der Jugendtraiime vergebens zuriick. 
 
 "Und das traurigste Wort, das ein Ohr je vernahm, 
 1st wohl dieses : Ach, dasz es anders kam! 
 
 "Wie manche siisse Hoffnung liegt 
 Begraben tief vor der Menschen Gesicht ! 
 
 "Doch mogen im Jenseits die Engelein 
 Weg walzen vom stillen Grab den Stein!" 
 
 The translation by E. O. Hopp is also very good : 
 
 "Maud Muller an einem Sommertag 
 Reihte das Heu am griinen Hag. 
 
 "Unter dem armlichen Hut, wie gliiht 
 Ihr Antlitz, das froh im Jugendscbein bluht! 
 
 "Singend schafft sie, ein Echo erklang 
 Der Drossel, die fern am Waldsaum sang." 
 
 COBBLER KEEZAR S VISION (1861). 
 
 The ballad of Keezar 90 was written on occasion of a Horti 
 cultural Festival, and was sent to Fields with the following note, 
 
 87 Adolf Strodtmann, Amerikanische Anthologie, Leipzig, S. 120. 
 
 88 J. Noroth, Bluten der neueren englischen und amerikanischen Poesie 
 ins Deutsche iibertragen. Boston, 1874, S. 99. 
 
 89 W. Prinzhorn, Von beiden Ufern des Atlantik, Hendel-Halle 1894 
 S. 415. 
 
 8S>a Ernst O. Hopp, Unter dem Sternenbanner, Bromberg, 1877. 
 
 90 See headnote to Poem, Cambridge Edition, page 77. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 63 
 
 before its appearance in The Atlantic Monthly for February, 
 1861: 
 
 "I send thee an absurd ballad which I like for its absurdity. 
 Read it, and let me know whether thee think it worth submitting 
 to Lowell. It is just what Harper would like, but I would like 
 better to see it in the Maga., if it is proper for it." 91 
 
 Cobbler Keezar was a noted character of German birth 
 among the first settlers in the valley of the Merrimac. 
 
 In Whittier s Prose Works, in an article on the Border War 
 of i?o8, Q2 may be found an account of this strange personage. 
 
 Another account of Cobbler Keezar is to be found in the 
 History of Haverhill, Mass The material for this history was 
 partly collected by Whittier, but completed and edited by B. L. 
 Mirick. As the Haverhill history adds a little more to the 
 story, it is quoted here: 
 
 "This Keezar, the son of John Keezar, was a very eccentric 
 man, and a jack at all trades. He was said to be exceedingly 
 proud of his proficiency in walking, leaping, and other manual 
 exercises, and, if tradition may be relied upon, he was certainly a 
 great walker and leaper, for it is said that he walked to Boston 
 and back again in one night, and jumped over a cart with two 
 large pails full of milk in his hands. It was his custom to go 
 from this town to Amesbury and pitch his tent on the side of a 
 hill, where he worked at the trade of shoemaking, and lived in 
 all respects, while there, like an austere hermit." 
 
 "It was the fact that Keezar was wont to pitch his tent on 
 Po Hill and mend the foot-gear of the Amesbury people, that 
 suggested to the poet the use of his name as the seer of the won 
 derful vision revealed by the magic lapstone." 94 
 
 "Well knew the tough old Teuton 
 
 Who brew r ed the stoutest ale, 
 And he paid the good wife s reckoning 
 In the coin of song and tale. 
 
 91 See Pickard, Life and Letters, page 430. 
 
 92 Riverside Edition, Vol. II, pages 375-6. 
 
 98 History of Haverhill, Mass., edited by B. L. Mirick, 1832, page 119. 
 94 Pickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 429. 
 
64 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "The songs they still are singing 
 Who dress the hills of vine, 
 The tales that haunt the Brocken 
 And whisper down the Rhine." 
 
 ******* 
 "Oh for the breath of vineyards 
 
 Of apples and nuts and wine! 
 For an oar to row and a breeze to blow 
 Down the grand old river Rhine ! 
 
 "A tear in his blue eye glistened 
 
 And dropped on his beard so gray, 
 Old, old am I, said Keezar, 
 And the Rhine flows far away!" 
 ******* 
 
 "Well he knew the tricks of magic, 
 
 And the lapstone on his knee 
 Had the gift of Mormon goggles 
 Or the stone of Dr. Dee. 
 
 "For the mighty master Agrippa 95 
 
 Wrought it with spell and rhyme 
 From a fragment of magic moonstone 
 In the tower of Nettesheim. 
 
 "To a cobbler Minnesinger 
 
 The marvellous stone gave he, 
 
 And he gave it in turn, to Keezar, 
 
 Who brought it over the sea." 
 
 Then follows a very beautiful description of woodlands and 
 streams in the Fatherland, and the villages upon their banks, as 
 they pass before Keezar s view. 
 
 " What is it I see? said Keezar: 
 
 Am I here, or am I there? 
 Is it a fete at Bingen ? 
 
 Do I look on Frankfurt fair? 
 
 "But where are the clowns and puppets, 
 
 And imps with horns and tail ? 
 And where are the Rhenish flagons? 
 And where is the foaming ale? 
 
 " B Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, born at Cologne, September 
 14, 1487, and died 1535. He was interested in magic and studied at Wiirzburg, 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 65 
 
 All sorts of strange people pass, in his vision, and the poet 
 continues : 
 
 "Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, 
 Laughed like a schoolboy gay; 
 Tossing his arms above him, 
 The lapstone rolled way. 
 
 "It rolled down the rugged hillside, 
 It spun like a wheel bewitched, 
 It plunged through the leaning willows, 
 And into the river pitched." 
 
 In another poem of Whittier s, The Sycamores, he again 
 refers to the cobbler as at work under the grand old trees planted 
 by Hugh Tallant, the first Irish resident of Haverhill: 
 
 "Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, 
 
 On the open hillside wrought 
 Singing, as he drew his stitches, 
 
 Songs his German masters taught." 96 
 
 The character of Agrippa, the Master of Magic of Nettes- 
 heim, must have had a fascination for Whittier, as he mentions 
 him at other times in his works. In The Pennsylvania Pilgrim 
 he says : 
 
 "Rare plants of power and herbs of healing grew 
 Such as Von Helmont and Agrippa knew." 98 
 
 In his prose works in an article on Magicians and Witch 
 Folk he refers to the knight : 
 
 "It may be that our modern conjurer defended himself on 
 grounds similar to those assumed by the celebrated knight of 
 Nettesheim, in the preface to his first Book of Magic: Some, 
 says he, may crie oute that I teach forbidden arts, sow the seed 
 
 under the abbot, Tretheim, the teacher of Paracelsus. The books by which 
 he is best known are : De vanitate et incertitude scientarum and De occulta 
 philosophia sive de magia. 
 
 * Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 58. 
 
 " s Cambridge Edition of Poetical Works, page 104. 
 
66 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 of heresies, offend pious ears, and scandalize excellent wits; that 
 I am a sorcerer, superstitious and devilish, who indeed am a 
 magician. To whom I answer, that a magician doth not among 
 learned men signifie a sorcerer or one that is superstitious or 
 devilish, but a wise man, a priest, a prophet, and that the sibyls 
 prophesied most clearly of Christ; that magicians, as wise men, 
 by the wonderful secrets of the world, knew Christ to be born, 
 and came to worship him, first of all; and that the name of 
 magicke is received by philosophers, commended by divines, and 
 not unacceptable to the Gospel." 99 
 
 In a letter to Fields, Whittier writes : 
 
 "I have been looking over the proof of Snow Bound. 
 . . I shall dedicate it to my brother, and shall occupy one 
 page with quotations from Cor. Agrippa, and from Emerson s 
 SnowStorm!" 1 
 
 The quotation which he made use of is: 
 
 "As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so 
 Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only 
 by the divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood 
 Fire; and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also 
 this our Fire of Wood doth the same." 101 Cor. Agrippa, Occult 
 Philosophy, Book i, Chap. 5. 
 
 BARBARA FRIETCHIE (1863). 
 
 This ballad was published in The Atlantic Monthly for 
 October, 1863, and was suggested to Whittier by the novelist, 
 Mrs. D. E. N. Southworth, of Georgetown, D. C, with whom 
 he became acquainted through his position of corresponding- 
 editor of The National Era. The following is the story as Mrs. 
 Southworth sent it to the poet: 
 
 "When Lee s army occupied Frederick, the only Union flag 
 displayed in the city was held from an attic window by Mrs. 
 Barbara Frietchie, a widow lady, aged ninety-seven years. Such 
 
 M Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. I, page 402. 
 
 100 S. T. Pickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 497. 
 
 101 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 399. 
 
W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 67 
 
 was the paragraph that went the round of the Washington papers 
 last September. Some time afterwards, from friends who were 
 in Frederick at the time, I heard the whole story. It was the 
 story of a woman s heroism, which, when heard, seemed as much 
 to belong to you as a book picked up with your autograph on 
 the flyleaf. So here it is : 
 
 "Barbara Frietchie was born in 1766; she was ten years old 
 at the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, and was fifteen 
 years old at its close; therefore at the most susceptible period of 
 her life she must have drawn in from that heroic epoch the 
 ardent spirit of patriotism which inspired her act. When on the 
 morning of the 6th of September, the advance of Lee s army, led 
 by the formidable rebel general, Stonewall Jackson, entered 
 Frederick, every Union flag was lowered, and the halliards cut; 
 every store and every dwelling house was closed ; the inhabitants 
 had retreated indoors; the streets were deserted, and, to quote 
 the official report, the city wore a church-yard aspect . But Mrs. 
 Barbara Frietchie, taking one of the Union flags, went up to the 
 top of her house, opened a garret window, and held it forth. 
 The rebel army marched up the street, saw the flag; the order 
 was given, Halt! Fire! and a volley was discharged at the win 
 dow from which it was displayed. The flag-staff was partly 
 broken, so that the flag drooped ; the old lady drew it in, broke 
 off the fragment, and, taking the stump with the flag still attached 
 to it in her hand, stretched herself as far out of the window as 
 she could, held the Stars and Stripes at arm s length waving over 
 the rebels, and cried out in a voice of indignation and sorrow: 
 Fire at this old head, then, boys; it is not more venerable than 
 your flag . They fired no more ; they passed in silence and with 
 downcast looks; and she secured the flag in its place, where it 
 waved unmolested during the whole of the rebel occupation of 
 the city. Stonewall would not permit her to be troubled. The 
 rebel army evacuated Frederick on the nth, and our troops, 
 under General Burnside, entered on the I2th. Then , to quote 
 the document again, Flags of all sizes and from every con 
 ceivable place were displayed . But as for the heroic old lady, 
 she died a few days after ; some thought she died of joy at the 
 
68 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 presence of the Union army, and some that she died of excite 
 ment and fatigue from the lionization she received; for those 
 who could not emulate the old lady s courage did honor to her 
 act/ 102 
 
 Mrs. Southworth had the story from Mr. C. S. Bramsburg, 
 a neighbor of hers and a relative of Barbara s. 103 
 
 Mrs. Mary Quantrell, of Frederick, wrote to Whittier, 
 claiming to be the one who had waved the flag and asking that 
 she be recognized. There was so much controversy over the 
 poem that Whittier was really annoyed by the letters that were 
 sent to him about it. To some one who expressed doubt as to 
 the actual occurrence of the fact immortalized by the poem, he 
 replied "That there was a Dame Frietchie in Frederick who loved 
 the old flag is not disputed by any one. As for the rest I do not 
 feel responsible. If there was no such occurrence, so much the 
 worse for Frederick City". 104 
 
 Henry M. Nixdorff, a German citizen of Frederick and a 
 neighbor of Barbara s, has written a little book, 105 Historic Old 
 Frederick, in which he gives a sketch of Whittier s heroine, with 
 whom he was personally acquainted. According to his account 
 she was a Pennsylvania German from Lancaster, born in 1766. 
 Her name and that of her parents, Nicholas and Catherine 
 Hauer, are recorded in the records of the First Reformed Church 
 of Lancaster. Her husband, John C. Fritchie, conducted 
 a glove factory in Frederick, Md., and was a highly respected 
 citizen. He was successful in business, but did not acquire great 
 wealth, and at his death left his wife the modest brick house on 
 West Patrick Street. "The old lady, Mrs. Fritchie, was not 
 robust, but decision of character was seen throughout, and judg 
 ing from her eyes and mouth she surely was not one to be trifled 
 with. She was one of those persons who impress you favorably 
 
 108 Pickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 454. 
 
 103 S. T. Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 456. 
 
 1M Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 457. 
 
 105 Life of Whittier s Heroine, Barbara Fritchie, including a brief but com 
 prehensive sketch of Historic Old Frederick, by Henry M. Nixdorff, Frederick, 
 Md., 1887. 
 
Whitticr s Relation to German Life and Thought 69 
 
 at the first interview. I shall never for a moment forget her ap 
 pearance as she came into my store during the earlier part of the 
 war, leaning on her staff and saying with the greatest earnestness, 
 Do not for a moment despair; stand firm ." 
 
 The book proves nothing, however, except that Barbara 
 was a patriotic old lady who would be capable of such an act, and 
 that the flag always fluttered from her window. He says: 
 
 "As the Confederate troops passed out West Patrick Street, 
 I stood at the front window of my dwelling. General Jackson s 
 corps was in advance. So intent was I in noticing and reflecting 
 on this lamentable action on the part of the people against the 
 best government on earth, that I lost sight of what was going on 
 at Mrs. Fritchie s, although her residence was not a square 
 away from my own. But this I do believe, that if the opportunity 
 presented, she did not fail to improve it, as Aunt Fritchie was 
 fearless and very patriotic. I am inclined to believe from inquiry 
 that General Jackson 106 did not pass by her dwelling. It appears 
 he left his soldiers to call on Rev. Dr. Ross, pastor of the Presby 
 terian Church. Grant it was not General Jackson, it might have 
 been some other officer in command ; if so, it would not change 
 the principle." 
 
 He goes on to relate that he did see a neighbor, Mrs. Ouan- 
 trell, standing on her front porch, with a small Union flag in her 
 hand, waving it, and apparently making the most earnest remarks 
 to a Confederate officer. 
 
 Whittier mentions Mrs. Mary Ouantrell in the head-note 107 
 to his poem and says: "It is possible that there has been a blend 
 ing of the two incidents." 
 
 In The New York Sun, August 12, 1912, is an article by the 
 niece of Barbara Frietchie, Mrs. Caroline Winebrenner, in which 
 she corroborates Mrs. Southworth s story and says she was with 
 her aunt in Frederick at the time. 
 
 The philanthropist, Dorothea Dix, also investigated the case 
 and confirmed the facts as stated by the novelist to the poet. 
 
 106 Mrs. Stonewall Jackson denies the incident in her Life and Letters of 
 Gen. T. J. Jackson. Harpers, New York, 1891. 
 
 107 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 342. 
 
70 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Whittier says in a letter dated October 19, 1890: 
 
 "I had a portrait of the good old lady Barbara from the 
 saintly hand of Dorothea Dix, whose life is spent in works of 
 love and duty, and a cane from Barbara s cottage, sent me by 
 Dr. Steiner of the Maryland Senate. Whether she did all that 
 my poem ascribed to her or not, she was a brave and true woman. 
 I followed the account given me in a private letter and in the 
 papers of the time." 108 
 
 A most interesting account of the patriotic old lady is given 
 by Caroline H. Dall. 109 She gives as sources for her material 
 Valerius Ebert, a nephew of Caspar Fritchie, and others who 
 were either related to, or knew the Fritchies, and especially Dr. 
 Lewis H. Steiner, of Baltimore, who presented Whittier with 
 Barbara s cane. Miss Dall says that her inquiries satisfied her 
 that the story was true as told by Mrs. Southworth. The novelist 
 does not say that Stonewall Jackson ordered the troops to fire, 
 but that Whittier was inspired by the noble suggestions of the 
 story and gave his imagination full play. It was natural that he 
 should think that the general who gave the orders to "march on" 
 was at his post when the disturbance began. 
 
 However, we do not expect a poet to cling always to facts. 
 Whether the incident occurred or not, Whittier has made of the 
 incident a most stirring ballad, that has made Dame Barbara im 
 mortal. He spells the name as Mrs. Southworth sent it to him, 
 which was in fact the original spelling, but Miss Dall says : 
 
 "Barbara Fritchie did not preserve the German spelling of 
 her name, and I spell it here as it is spelled on her monument in 
 the graveyard at Frederick." 110 
 
 Henry M. Nixdorf also confirms this and says: "We -give 
 the English as it was spelled on his small sign at the window, 
 where he was conducting business, Tritchie. " ni 
 
 The poem has been translated once into the Pennsylvania 
 German dialect and twice into German. The Pennsylvania Ger- 
 
 108 See Pickard s Life and Letters of J. G. Whittier, page 458. 
 
 109 Barbara Fritchie, a Study, by Caroline H. Dall, Boston : Roberts Broth 
 ers, 1892. 
 
 Fritchie, a Study, by C. H. Dall, page 15. 
 
 m Life of Whittier s Heroine, B. Fritchie, by H. M. Nixdorf. Preface. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 71 
 
 man poem is by Lee L. Grumbine, 112 of Lancaster, Pa., and the 
 title reads Die Alt Bevvy Fritchie. 
 
 The translation into the dialect is very interesting and is writ 
 ten in the same metre as Whittier s, but some of the stanzas do 
 not scan very smoothly ; the first verses giving the description of 
 Frederick, as the rebel troops enter the city, will serve to illustrate : 
 
 "Aus grime Felder, mit Friichte reich, 
 
 In der Morge-kuhle, im schone Deich, 
 Ummaurt bei griine Hitwel dort 
 
 Stehn die Kirche-thurm der Frererich Stadt. 
 
 Mit Appel un Pirsching Bam rings rumkehrt, 
 
 Ke Land meh lieblich uf ganser Erd ! 
 Herrlich schtreckt vor wie Gottes-garte, 
 
 Zu de hungriche A ge der Rebel- Soldate." 
 
 The translations into German are by Ernst O. Hopp 113 and 
 Johann Straubenmiiller. 114 Of these, Straubenmiiller s translation 
 is perhaps the better. It is, however, not a literal translation, 
 though he uses the same metre as Whittier. Again the beginning 
 of the poem is quoted as illustration : 
 
 "Von Hugeln Maryland s bewacht 
 Winkt Frederick uns zu und lacht. 
 
 Ringsum ist s einem Garten gleich, 
 
 An Korn und Obst und Friichten reich. 
 
 September war s, der Morgen fein, 
 Als Lee brach wettergleich herein." 
 
 THE PALATINE. 
 
 This poem appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, January, 
 1867. 
 
 The legend 115 on which the ballad of The Palatine is founded 
 was told to Whittier by his friend Joseph P. Hazard, of New 
 port, R. I. 
 
 112 See Pennsylvania German Dialect, by Lee L. Grumbine, contained in the 
 Pennsylvania German Society Proceedings and Addresses at Harrisburg, Octo 
 ber 25, 1901, Vol. 12, published 1903, page go. 
 
 118 England and Amerika, herausgegeben von Julius Hart, Minden, 1885. 
 
 114 Herbstrosen, Gesammelte Gedichte von Johann Straubenmiiller, New 
 York, 1889, S. 161. 
 
 116 Pickard, Life and Letters, page 527. 
 
72 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Faust 116 suggests that the wrecked ship, to which Whittier s 
 poem refers, was doubtless from the Palatinate and carried Ger 
 man immigrants. According to Faust, the vessel was probably the 
 Herbert, which sailed from England, in 1710, in company with 
 nine other ships, carrying in all about 3000 persons, most of whom 
 were destined for the Schoharie region in New York. It was 
 bound for Philadelphia and was wrecked on the east coast of 
 Long Island. Tradition says that the vessel was laden with 
 treasure and that this excited the greed of the crew, who slew 
 the immigrants and made off with their booty. 
 
 In the poem, the wreckers on shore lured the ship to 
 its ruin with false lights, and after all on board were lost, burned 
 the wreck. After its publication, Whittier received the following 
 letter 116 * from an old man, Benjamin Corydon, of Napoli, N. Y., 
 telling of his having seen the phantom-ship : 
 
 "I sent you a paper containing a statement 117 of what I knew 
 about the Palatine or Phantom of Block Island. I saw her a 
 number of times in my early days; she always came on the same 
 night of the year. My father lived right opposite Block Island 
 on the Main, so we had a fair view of her as she passed down by 
 the Island. I think it must be seventy years or more since the 
 last time she was seen ; it was the greatest sight I ever saw in my 
 long life. It came right from the hand of the Almighty, she was 
 sent no doubt to let them miserable men know that he hadn t for 
 got their wickedness in murdering her people when they were on 
 their knees at prayer thanking God for saving them from being 
 drowned." 
 
 BARON STEUBEN. 
 
 In an article, The Black Men in the Revolution and War of 
 i8i2, 117& Whittier relates this incident of the celebrated Hessian, 
 Baron Steuben, in the American Revolution : 
 
 "There is a touching anecdote related of Baron Steuben 
 on the occasion of the disbandment of the American army. A 
 
 116 A. B. Faust, German Element in the United States, page 80. 
 1163 Letter in possession of Mr. Pickard. 
 
 117 See Pickard : Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 527, 
 for this statement. 
 
 117a Prose Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Vol. II, pages 407-8. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 73 
 
 black soldier, with his wounds unhealed, utterly destitute, stood 
 on the wharf just as a vessel bound for his distant home was 
 getting under way. The poor fellow gazed at the vessel with tears 
 in his eyes, and gave himself up to despair. The warm-hearted 
 foreigner witnessed his emotion and, inquiring into the cause of 
 it, took his last dollar from his purse and gave it to him, with 
 tears of sympathy trickling down his cheeks. Overwhelmed with 
 gratitude, the poor wounded soldier hailed the sloop and was 
 received on board. As it moved out from the wharf, he cried 
 back to his noble friend on shore: God Almighty bless you, 
 Master Baron ! " 
 
 GERMAN AMERICAN TRANSLATION OF WHITTIER S 
 "HOMESTEAD." 
 
 In Amesbury is a scrap book, in which the poet had collected 
 tributes to him on his birthdays, and things of a like nature. 
 Among these is a clipping taken from The Reading Times. It is 
 a translation of Whittier s poem Homestead, entitled Die Verlas- 
 sene Heirnat, and signed H. L. F. 
 
 The translation is by Henry L. Fisher, who was an attorney- 
 at-law of York, Pa., and the author of several interesting volumes 
 on Pennsylvania German Life and Customs. 
 
 His poem is in the same metre, but lacks the beauty and 
 smoothness of Whittier s poem. It is not an exact translation, 
 nor do the stanzas follow exactly the order of Whittier s poem. 
 Fur die Reading Times. Die Verlassene Heimat. Nach Whit 
 tier s Homestead. 
 
 Am blassen Berg steht s leere Haus 
 
 Ach, hab ich das zuletzt erlebt? 
 Grinst s Gespenst auf s leere Feld hinaus? 
 
 Wo einst die Erndte schweb t? 
 
 Un pfliigt, un sat und ungemaht 
 
 Liegt der versaumt , verlass ne Grund, 
 
 Einst fruchtbar und lebhaft mit Mad , 
 Und Knaben, frisch und g sund. 
 
 Der Garten, blum- und krauterlos 
 
 Kein Hausweib ist mehr hier geneigt, 
 Das Unkraut iiberwachst die Ros , 
 
 Wo jetzt die Schlange schleicht. 
 
74 VVhittiers Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Der Lilacbusch, einst bliihend hier, 
 
 1st laub- und bliitenlos ; 
 Allein und traurig an der Thur, 
 
 Da bliih t noch eine Ros . 
 
 Im Staub und Schimmel, alt und faul, 
 
 Lasst s Wild sein leise Spur, 
 Und in dem grossen Schornstein-Maul 
 
 Webt s Spinnlein seine Schnur. 
 
 Die alte Scheuer ist im Verfall, 
 
 Man hort kein Basters Lustigkeit, 
 
 Auch nicht des Flegels Wiederhall, 
 So wie in alter Zeit. 
 
 So traurig und so einsam scheint s, 
 
 So grimmig, gram und graus, 
 Bald uberall, so dass man mein t 
 
 Die G spenster halten Haus. 
 
 Ach, Heimath, unbewohnt, verloren 
 Ist jed Andenken im Vergang? 
 
 All fort Verwandten, hier geboren 
 Drum Leid ist mein Gesang. 
 
 Ihr Wanderer vom Heimathsland, 
 
 Verlasset Amter, G schaft, Vertrauen, 
 
 Und schliesst mit mir ein treues Band 
 Die Heimath wiederbauen. 
 
 Komm t wieder wo die Lorbeer bliihen, 
 Im kiihlen Schatten alter Baum 
 
 Fichten und Tannen, dunkelgriin 
 Und wieder frohlich sein. 
 
 Obschon der Vorteil ist gering, 
 
 Geld ist doch nicht der hochste Werth, 
 
 Die Heimath mehr Vergniigen bringt 
 Als Reichtum aller Erd. 
 
 All was der Geiz verlangen kann 
 Ihr Handels-Sklaven, ohne Gunst, 
 
 Was war s zum kunstlos landlich Mann ? 
 Werthlos, freudlos, umsonst! 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 75 
 
 Der glikklich Landbauer, der ist f rei 
 
 Es herrscht keiner iiber ihn ; 
 Sein Konigreich, die Bauerei 
 
 Er herrschet wo er dien t 
 
 O, Vater, ihr die Walderwand 
 
 Mit Riesen-Stark hernieder hauen ! 
 O, Mutter, ihr, mit treuen Hand , 
 
 Die Heimath hiilften bauen! 
 
 Die landlich Knaben kamen hier 
 
 Ihr liebsten Schatzchen ofters sehen 
 
 Die Madchen lieb, voll Gunst und Zier 
 Am Weben, Spinnen, Nahen. 
 
 Hier spielten Kinder nach der Schul , 
 
 Wie herrlich, f rohlich, f roh und f rei ; 
 
 Die liebe Mutter sass im Stuhl, 
 Wiegt und strickt dabei. 
 
 Durch murmelnden Bach und seufzend Luft, 
 
 Wiird wenig G heimniss offenbart ; 
 Im Kirchhof, in der stillen Gruft, 
 
 Schlaft aber viel und wart ! 
 
 Ach prahl nicht mehr, mein Heimath arm, 
 
 Dein reichen Sohne, feme, draus , 
 Vergesslich, dass nur ein jeder Schwarm 
 
 Lasst nur ein leeres Haus. 
 
 Mit fleissiger, muthwilliger Hand, 
 
 Und allem das die Kunst euch bringt, 
 
 Verbesseret das Heimathsland 
 Seid frohlich hier und singt. 
 
 West York, April 14, 1886. 
 
 H. L. F. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF "CLERICAL OPPRESSORS" BY A GERMAN 
 
 AMERICAN. 
 
 The following letter and translation was sent to me by Mr. 
 S. T. Pickard, with permission to print it: 
 
76 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 New Bedford, Mass., 1875. 
 John G. Whittier, Esq. 
 
 Dear Sir, A while since I translated one of your National 
 Lyrics "Clerical Oppressors" into German, and however poorly 
 I may have succeeded, I deem it but just to send you, the author, 
 a copy thereof. Hoping that the language is not a stranger to you, 
 and likewise that it has not lost all its beauties in the attempt, 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours Respectfully, 
 
 JULIUS KlRSCHBAUM, 
 
 30 Purchase Street, 
 
 New Bedford. 
 
 Pfaffische Unterdriicker. Frei nach J. G. Whittier. 
 
 Grosser Gott! und dieses sind sie, 
 Die Dir an dem Altare dienen, Herr des Rechts ! 
 Manner, die ihre Hand in Segen und Gebet 
 Auf des Lichtes Arche legen. 
 
 Was, predigen und Menschen stehlen? 
 Dank sagen und gequalte Arme rauben ? 
 Von Freiheit plappern, und verrammeln dann 
 Fest des Gef ang nen Thiir ? 
 
 Was? Diener, Knechte deines 
 
 Barmherzigen Sohnes, der zu suchen und zu losen kam, 
 Verier ne und Gebund ne, in Bande schmieden 
 Den beraubten Sklaven ? 
 
 Pilatus und Herodus Freunde ! 
 Priester und Herrscher, wie vor Zeit vereint ! 
 Gerechter, heiliger Gott ! ist deine Kirche es 
 Die Rauber starkt ? 
 
 Bezahlte Heuchler, die da 
 Recht verdrehen, und cleinem heil gen Wort 
 Die hohe Wahrheit nehmen, die sengt 
 In Warnung und Verweis. 
 
 Fresset f ett euch Manner, f resst ! 
 Und Gott gedankt auf den gezierten Kanzeln, 
 Dass durch gesclumd ner Sklaven Elend 
 Ihr cure Koffer fiillt. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 77 
 
 Wie lange, Herr, wie lang 
 Soll n diese Pfaffen Wahrheit feilschen, 
 Und am Altar in deinem Namen 
 Fiir Unrecht beten? 
 
 1st am Firmamente 
 
 Deine Hand zum Schlag nicht ausgestreckt ? 
 Soil Recht nicht iiben der Erd , des Himmels 
 Lebendiger Gott? 
 
 Wehe alien dann, die, Briider, 
 Kinder eines gleichen Vaters, unterdriicken ! 
 Berauben seines Schmuckes, seiner Krone, 
 Den ewigen Geist ! 
 
 Wehe, well den Pfaffen, 
 Die man mit Blntzins da bezahlt 
 Wahrheit dafiir verderbend, andernd 
 Auf ihren Pfad. 
 
 Ihre Macht und Ehre 
 
 Wird vergeh n ; und ihre Namen sogar sollen 
 Schmutzig vor dem ganzen Volke stehen 
 Im Licht der Freiheit. 
 
 Und eile, eile ihn. 
 
 Den Tag wo Unrecht endet Freiheit, Liebe, 
 Wahrheit, Recht, wird herrschen durch die Welt 
 Wie iiber Sternen. 
 
 Whittier sent the following unpublished letter 118 to the 
 translator : 
 
 "Amesbury, 17, 5th mo., 1875. 
 "Dear Friend : 
 
 "I am happy to acknowledge the receipt of thy translation of 
 my poem. So far as my imperfect knowledge of German enables 
 me to judge, it is a good rendering of my verses, in spirit as well 
 as in letter. 
 
 "Some translations 1 18a of my poems, I received two or three 
 years ago from Berlin. They were made by Monte Block. 
 "I am truly thy friend, 
 
 "John G. Whittier." 
 
 118 Letter in possession of Wm. G. Kirschbaum, New Bedford, Mass. 
 
 118 a Owing to the death of Mr. Pickard, I was unable to get hold of these 
 translations, but if I have access to them later, I will publish them in some 
 journal. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 WHITTIER AND GERMAN THEMES. 
 
 Whittier has been compared, and not inaptly, to some of the 
 poets of the Befreiungskriege in Germany, especially to Theodor 
 Korner. 
 
 Isaac Knapp, the publisher of Whittier s little volume of 
 Poems 119 written during the progress of the Abolition Question 
 in the United States between the years 1830 and 1838, says in 
 his introductory remarks: 
 
 "A kindly and generous spirit, filled like that of Whittier, 
 with all gentleness and calmest hope , makes a sacrifice of its 
 most cherished delights and occupations, when it springs to the 
 defense of the difficult pass which commands the battle-field of 
 Christian Freedom, with the determination to defend it unto 
 blood, and yet to shed none. 
 
 "Except in this difference of opinion as to the mode of 
 effecting deliverance from oppression, Whittier is the Korner of 
 America ." 
 
 Whittier, like Arndt, fought his battles with the pen, and we 
 will see later that Whittier wrote a poem under the inspiration of 
 one of Arndt s Marchen. 
 
 As a ballad writer Whittier is unsurpassed in America, and 
 his ballads have been compared to those of the German poet 
 Ludwig Uhland. An article on Uhland in The Independent, 
 December n, 1862, speaks of the poet s death and says: 
 "UhJand s best songs are sweet ballads, full of archness, or 
 pathos, or quiet beauty, yet he does not lack vigor. Our Uhland 
 is Whittier." 
 
 Whittier s ballads are as true to the spirit of New England 
 as are Uhland s to his own native Suabia. The Quaker poet 
 knew the poems of the German poet. In a letter to Mrs. Fields, 
 dated 7th mo., 14, 1882, he refers to the ballad of Auf der Ueber- 
 
 119 Published by Isaac Knapp, Bostpn, 1837. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 79 
 
 fahrt: "How can I thank thee for the graphic description of your 
 visit to the Isle of Wight, and strange and picturesque Cloverly, 
 and venerable Hermanstow, with its Norman tower looking, as 
 the rare old vicar did, into the ocean s mystery ? Since reading it, 
 I seem to have been with you all the way. Did John Oak or his 
 uncle seem aware that they were carrying a third passenger, like 
 the boatman in Uhland s ballad, and did you pay double fare on 
 my account?" 120 
 
 In an unpublished letter to Mrs. Fields, dated Amesbury, 
 roth mo., 29, 1886, Whittier speaks again of this ballad: 121 "The 
 very thought of your visit here makes me happy. . . . Like 
 the invisible boatman in the German ballad, I rode with you all 
 the way to Berwich." 
 
 W. Sloane Kennedy 122 calls attention to the similarity of 
 Platen s Grab im Busento and Whittier s Funeral Tree of the 
 Sokokis: "The latter well-known poem is pitched in as high and 
 solemn a key as Platen s Grab im Biisento, a poem similar in 
 theme to Whittier s." 
 
 It is hardly likely that Whittier was influenced by Platen s 
 poem. He nowhere mentions Platen in his works or letters. In 
 a note 123 to the poem he tells us that the theme was taken from an 
 actual occurrence amongst the Sokokis Indians around Casco 
 Bay ; so that it seems to be mere chance that the themes resemble 
 each other. 
 
 THE DEVIL LEGENDS, FAUST AND GOETHE. 
 
 If one searches the pages of the papers edited by Whittier 
 between the years 1828 and 1838, one will find that the legends 
 in connection with the devil and the Faust story were occupying 
 Whittier s mind. 
 
 In The Essex Gazette for September 27, 1828, is a lengthy 
 synopsis of the interesting story of German folklore; of the 
 
 120 Pickard s Life of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 681. The original letter 
 is in possession of Mrs. James T. Fields, Boston, Mass. 
 
 121 Original letter owned by Mrs. Fields. 
 
 122 /. G. Whittier, His Life, Genius and Writings, by W. S. Kennedy, Bos 
 ton, 1883. 
 
 128 Whittier s Poems, Cambridge Edition, page u. 
 
8o Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 hunter, who, by a compact with the devil, obtained a certain number 
 of bullets destined to hit, without fail, whatever object he wished. 
 
 The first time that the story was made use of in literature, 
 was by Johann August Apel in his Gespensterbuch, and it is from 
 a translation of this that Whittier makes his synopsis. The title 
 of Whittier s story reads Der Freischutz, or The Magic Ball, 
 from the German of A. Apel. 124 The work has no signature, but 
 A. W. Thayer, at that time editor of the paper, has marked it as 
 Whittier s. At times the work is mere synopsis ; at other times 
 he quotes directly from the translation. 
 
 The synopsis begins with the following introductory remarks : 
 
 "There is a wildness of conception in this singular produc 
 tion, equalled only by the awful grandeur of its descriptions. 
 Our interest is, at the commencement, strongly excited, and sup 
 ported through the whole with a strange and fearful intensity, 
 which more than once during the progress of the tale rises almost 
 to a feeling of horror. The scene is laid in a wild and romantic 
 district of Germany; and the tale commences with a discourse 
 between Betram, the forester of Lindenhayn, and his wife Anne, 
 on the subject of their daughter s marriage." 
 
 Whittier again mentions Der Frieschiitz in the article on 
 The Agency of Evil: 125 
 
 "They stood there on their little patch of sanctified territory 
 like the gamekeeper of Der Freischutz in the charmed circle; 
 within were prayer and fasting, unmelodious psalmody and 
 solemn hewing of heretics before the Lord in Gilgal . " 
 
 The Everlasting Taper. 
 
 This story appeared first in The New England Review for 
 September 5, 1831, and again in The Essex Gazette for February 
 n, 1832. It is evident that he had the Faust theme in his mind, 
 as he says at the beginning of the story: "It is an old narration, 
 and would figure well in an improved edition of Faust s Mephis- 
 
 124 Tales of the Wild and the Wonderful, published in London, 1825 ; Phila 
 delphia, 1826, page 97- 
 
 136 Vol. Til, Prose Works, page 257, Riverside Edition. 
 
W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 81 
 
 topholes." The fact that Whittier published the story again in 
 the month after Goethe s death seems also significant. The scene 
 of the story is laid in France, however, and not in Germany. It 
 has, as Whittier says, several things in common with the Faust 
 legends. The devil appears in the form of a monkey; and in the 
 old Faust legends 126 there appear to Faust a whole legion of 
 lesser devils in the form of apes, boars, stags, bears, wolves, 
 goats, etc., "mit denen sich Faust lustig macht". In the stories 
 connected with Faust s famulus, Wagner, 127 Faust wills to him 
 before his death his possessions and procures for him a serving 
 spirit in the form of a monkey named "Auerhahn". However 
 it was a common thing in the sixteenth century to think of an ape 
 as having near relationship to the devil. 128 
 
 The compact for thirty years is also to be found in the stories 
 connected with Wagner, as his "Pact" 129 with the "Affe, Auer 
 hahn" was for thirty years. The halving the time of the contract 
 by counting days and nights separately is also found in the Puppet 
 plays of Faust. 
 
 As the story is an interesting one and is not included in 
 Whittier s collected works it is given in full in the appendix. 
 
 The Gretchen theme was in Whittier s mind also during 
 these years, as he writes a prose story and several poems, not 
 included in his collected works, on the theme of wronged love. 
 
 However, episodes in the life and works of Lord Byron 
 influenced his thoughts, as he refers a number of times to 
 Don Juan and to Byron s life. In The New England Review for 
 September 13, 1830, is a poem, The Spectre, founded, as Whittier 
 says in a note, on an episode in Lord Byron s life, in which he 
 tires of the girl whose ruin he has caused and brings her to a 
 sad death. 
 
 In the number of The Review for October n, 1830, Whit 
 tier publishes a tale, The Skeptic, of a German university student 
 
 126 See Carl Kiesewetter, Faust in der Gerschichte und Tradition, Leipzig, 
 1893, page 202. 
 
 127 See Carl Kiesewetter, Faust in der Gerschichte und Tradition, page 499. 
 
 128 See Luther s Tischreden, Edition Forstemann, III, S. 34, also S. 48. 
 
 129 See Kiesewetter, page 499. 
 
82 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 and his wicked companion, Faustendorff, with the introductory 
 remarks : 
 
 The following tale will be read with interest. It is a 
 thrilling development of the horrible effects of infidelity on the 
 human heart a deadly Sirocco, blasting everything fresh and 
 beautiful in the human heart." Ed. Rezneiv. 
 
 THE PROSELYTES. 
 
 In The Neiv England Magazine for September, 1833, 
 appeared The Proselytes, a story of William Penn s visit to 
 Germany and Holland in 1667. Here we see the student at his 
 books, seeking for the truth which he can not fathom, but 
 instead of a Mephistopheles appearing, a devil to lead his soul 
 to destruction, while giving him all earthly knowledge, appears 
 a good angel, in the form of a Quaker, William Penn, to bring 
 him to the knowledge of truth. 
 
 As this story 130 is included in Whittier s collected works, 
 it is not given here. 
 
 In 1835 in The Demon of the Study, 131 Whittier mentions 
 devils of all descriptions and describes the reading demon. He 
 says of the devil of Faust and of the devil of Martin Luther in 
 this poem: 
 
 "The friend of Faust was a faithful one, 
 
 Agrippa s demon wrought in fear, 
 And the devil of Martin Luther sat 
 
 By the stout monk s side in social chat." 
 
 The ballad, 132 The New Wife and the Old, 1843, is founded 
 on one of the New England legends about General Moulton, of 
 Hampton, N. H. Whittier says of him in a note to the poem: 
 "He was regarded by his neighbors as a Yankee Faust, in league 
 with the adversary." 
 
 130 Prose Works, Vol. i, page 305. 
 
 131 Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition, page 6. 
 
 132 Cambridge Edition, page 21. 
 
Whittiers Relation to German Life and Thought 83 
 
 In 1846, in an article on Thomas Carlyle and the Slave 
 Question^ Whittier speaks of Carlyle s ideas on the subject as 
 doing "honor to the devil of Faust": 
 
 "A late number of F raser s Magazine contains an article 
 bearing the unmistakable impress of the Anglo-German peculiari 
 ties of Thomas Carlyle, entitled An Occasional Discourse on the 
 Negro Question, which would be interesting as a literary curiosity 
 were it not in spirit and tendency so unspeakably wicked as to ex 
 cite in every right-minded reader a feeling of amazement and dis 
 gust. With a hard, brutal audacity, a blasphemous irreverence, 
 and a sneering mockery which would do honor to the devil of 
 Faust,, it takes issue with the moral sense of mankind and the pre 
 cepts of Christianity." 
 
 Later in the same article, 134 in speaking of Carlyle, he refers 
 to the devil legend made use of by Hauff in his story, Das Kaltc 
 Hers: 
 
 "His heart has got much on the wrong side ; or rather, he 
 seems to us very much in the condition of the coalburner in the 
 German tale, who had swapped his heart of flesh for a cobble 
 stone." 
 
 In the poem My Soul and 7, 135 1847, questions of doubt and 
 the soul s desire to fathom the unknown mysteries occupy the 
 poet s mind. 
 
 "What my soul, was thy errand here? 
 
 Was it mirth or ease, 
 Or heaping up dust from year to year? 
 Nay, none of these ! 
 
 "And where art thou going, soul of mine? 
 
 Can st see the end? 
 And whither this troubled life of mine 
 Evermore doth tend ? 
 
 133 Prose Works, Vol. Ill, page 133. 
 
 134 Prose Works, Vol. Ill, page 144. 
 
 135 Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition, page 426. 
 
84 IVhittiers Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "I call on the souls who have left the light 
 
 To reveal their lot ; 
 I bend mine ear to that wall of night, 
 And they answer not. 
 
 "But I hear around me sighs of pain 
 
 And the cry of fear, 
 
 And the sound like the slow sad dripping of rain, 
 Each drop a tear ! 
 
 "Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day 
 
 I am moving thither: 
 I must pass beneath it on my way 
 God pity me ! Whither?" 
 
 He confesses himself unable to answer these questions, but 
 takes refuge in Faith: 
 
 "Know well, my soul, God s hand controls 
 
 Whate er thott fearest, 
 Round him in calmest music rolls 
 Whate er thou hearest. 
 
 "Nothing before, nothing behind ; 
 
 The steps of Faith 
 Fall on the seeming void, and find 
 The rock beneath." 
 
 And as Goethe solves the question in the second part of 
 Faust, so to Whittier, salvation lies in love and service : 
 
 "O restless spirit! wherefore strain 
 
 Beyond thy sphere ? 
 
 Heaven and Hell, with their joy and pain, 
 Are now and here. 
 
 "Back to thyself is measured well 
 
 All thou hast given ; 
 
 Thy neighbor s wrong is thy present hell 
 His bliss, thy heaven." 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 8=; 
 
 In The Chapel of the Hermits, 1851, Whittier uses as theme 
 for his poem an incident related in a note to Bernardin Henri 
 Saint Pierre s Etude de la Nature. 
 
 It is a time in Pierre s life where he is in a condition of 
 doubt and despair in his search after truth. He rinds help in an 
 incident which occurs at a chapel of the Hermits, which he had 
 visited with J. J. Rousseau, and which is told in the poem. 
 Whittier says Pierre attributed his improved state of mind to the 
 counsels of Rousseau and quotes from Pierre: 136 "I threw my 
 eyes upon the works of nature, which spake to all my senses a 
 language which neither time nor nations have it in their power 
 to alter. ... I derived inexpressible satisfaction from his 
 society. . . . Even when he deviated, and became the victim 
 of himself or of others, he could forget his own misery in devo 
 tion to the welfare of mankind. . . . His sins, ivhich are 
 many, are forgiven, for he loved much." 
 
 Here again we have the theme of the Goethian solution of 
 salvation through works, in the life of the great French author. 
 
 In the poem Questions of Life, 137 1852, Whittier again takes 
 up questions into the mysteries of life. 
 
 In the poem The Haschisch, 1854, Whittier refers to Wal- 
 purgis Nacht: 
 
 "The poppy visions of Cathay, 
 
 The heavy beer-trance of the Swabian ; 
 The wizard lights and demon play 
 
 Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian !" 138 
 
 As has been mentioned, the translator Charles T. Brooks 
 was a friend of Whittier and there is a copy of Brooks trans 
 lation of Faust in Whittier s Library in Amesbury. 
 
 In an unpublished letter to James T. Fields from Whittier, 
 Amesbury, 4th, ist mo., 1857, he writes: 139 "I am delighted with 
 Brooks Faust. It gives me for the first time an agreeable idea of 
 Goethe s genius." 
 
 136 Cambridge Edition of Poetical Works, page 39. See headnote to poem. 
 13T Cambridge Edition of Poetical Works, page 432. 
 
 138 Cambridge Edition of Poetical Works, page 316. 
 
 139 Original letter in possession of Mrs. Annie Fields, Boston, Mass. 
 
86 Whittier^ Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 This translation was published in 1856, so it is too late to 
 have influenced our author in the works we have just discussed, 
 but there were other opportunities for Whittier to get acquainted 
 with Goethe s Faust. As early as 1825 there was an English 
 translation 140 by Lord Francis L. Gower. Even if Whittier may 
 not have seen this, there were translations and reviews 
 of Faust in a number of the periodicals 141 which Whittier read, 
 chief among these were The North American Review, The 
 Quarterly Review:, and Blackwood s Edinburgh Review. 
 
 Frank P. Stearns remarks in his Sketches from Concord and 
 Appledore 1 * 2 that Whittier read the translation of Faust, pre 
 sented to him by Bayard Taylor, but he read it for the sake of 
 old acquaintance ; but he did not like it and wondered especially 
 what explanation Goethe s apologists could make for the strange 
 and extraordinary characters in the second part. 
 
 Stearns statement does not agree with the view expressed in 
 the letter to Fields, written many years before the appearance of 
 Taylor s translation. 
 
 In answer to my inquiries, Mr. Stearns writes in a letter 
 dated from Arlington Heights, Mass., November 25, 1914: 
 
 "Whittier made the statement, you quote, to me at the Isle 
 of Shoals; but he had a high opinion of Goethe s and Schiller s 
 minor poems. 
 
 Faithfully, 
 
 FRANK P. STEARNS/ 
 
 As Stearns does not state at what period of our poet s life 
 this was, I assume that it was early, as Whittier, like Emerson 
 and many others of his day in New England, changed his atti 
 tude later in regard to Goethe. Whittier expresses distinctly his 
 appreciation of Goethe in 1870, when Bayard Taylor published 
 his translation of Faust. As these views are quoted in the chapter 
 on Bayard Taylor, they are not further discussed here. 
 
 140 See Goedekes Grundriss, Bd. IV, S. 52. 
 
 141 See German Lit. in Am. Maga. prior to 1846, by Scott Holland Good 
 night, University of Wis. Diss. 1907. 
 
 li2 Sketches from Concord & Appledore, by Frank Preston Stearns, 1895, 
 page 263. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 87 
 
 TRANSLATION OF DER ERLKONIG. 
 
 Whittier was occupied with other Goethe themes besides the 
 Faust questions, and translated the Erlkdnig, as Mr. Pickard 
 thinks, about 1840. It has not appeared in print except in the 
 Goethe Jahrbuch^ where it may be found with the following 
 note by Luclwig Geiger : 
 
 "Engliscke Ubersetzung des Erlkonigs. 
 " John G. Whittier, 17. Dezember 1807 bis 7. September 1892, 
 der Sohn eines armen Farmers, besuchte erst in seinem 2osten 
 Jahre die Howerhill Academy. 144 Er war 1828-1829 Redakteur 
 des Free Manufacturer, von 1830 an der Essex Gazette; 1836 
 wurde er Sekretar der Anti-Slavery Society, und redigierte 1838- 
 1839 deren Organ, The Pennsylvania Freeman. Er tragt den 
 Namen des Ouakerdichters und erfreut sich bei semen Lands- 
 leuten grosser Werthschatzung. Die nachfolgende ungedruckte 
 Ubersetzung, die vor vielen Jahren gemacht ist, wurde mir aus dem 
 Original von Herrn William A. Speck in Haverstraw, New York, 
 mitgeteilt. 
 
 LUDWIG GEIGER." 
 THE ERL-KING. 
 
 (Goethe.) 
 
 i. 
 
 Who rides so late through the night-wind wild? 
 It is a father with his child 
 He has him well in his circling arm ; 
 He holds him safe, he holds him warm. 
 
 2. 
 
 "My son! why hid st thou thy face in fear?" 
 "See st thou not father, the Ed-King near? 
 The Erl-King is here with crown and train." 
 "My son! tis a fog-wreath on the plain." 
 
 3- 
 
 "My dearest child come go with me, 
 Many fine games I ll play with thee, 
 
 Goethe Jahrbuch, Bd. XXV, S. 233. 
 Haverhill Academy. 
 
88 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Many-hued flowers on the strand unfold, 
 And my mother has many fine robes of gold." 
 
 4- 
 
 "My father! my father! dost thou not hear 
 What the Erl-King promises low in my ear?" 
 "Be quiet, rest quiet my child" he said 
 " Tis the wind that sounds in the leaves so dead." 
 
 5- 
 
 "Thou beautiful child, wilt thou go with me? 
 My fair young daughters shall wait on thee, 
 My daughters nightly their sport shall bring 
 And rock thee softly and dance and sing." 
 
 6. 
 
 "My father ! my father ! dost thou not trace 
 The Ed-King s daughters in yon drear place ?" 
 "My son, my son ! I see it there 
 Tis the shade of the willow so old and bare." 
 
 7- 
 
 "I love thee thy fair face charms me so, 
 If thou art not willing by force thou must go." 
 "My father, my father! I feel his arm, 
 The Erl-King has done me a grievous harm." 
 
 8. 
 
 The father shudders ; he rides on wild ! 
 He holds in his arms the moaning child, 
 He reaches his home with trouble and dread, 
 But the child he holds in his arms is dead ! 
 
 Whittier s original manuscript of the Erl-King with an 
 English translation by another hand, A. Geoghegan. and a clip 
 ping, giving Goethe s first suggestion for its writing, was sold 
 February 6, 1903, at an auction sale of Whittier manuscripts by 
 John Anderson, Jr., Auctioneers of Literary Property, New 
 York, and was purchased by Mr. William A. Speck, Curator of 
 the Collection in Modern German Literature, Yale University. 
 With his permission, I publish the translation by Geoghegan : 
 
Whittles s Relation to German Life and Thought 89 
 
 THE ERLKING. 
 
 (Translated by A. Geoghegan.) 
 i. 
 
 Who rides at this hour in night so wild ? 
 It is the father with his dear child, 
 He has the boy firm clasped in his arm, 
 He holds him closely to keep him warm. 
 
 2. 
 
 "My son, why bury thy face as in fear?" 
 "See, father, see the Erlking draws near ! 
 The Erlking crowned, with elf and sprite !" 
 "My son, tis but the mist of night!" 
 
 3- 
 
 Come, darling child, come, go with me, 
 And pleasant games I ll play with thee, 
 Sweet flowers blow in my garden fair, 
 And my mother has garments radiant and rare. 
 
 4- 
 
 "O father, my father, and can st thou not hear 
 The words the Erlking speaks low in mine ear?" 
 "Be still, be still: rest peaceful, my son, 
 In withered leaves the night-wind makes moan." 
 
 5- 
 
 Wilt go, sweet boy, wilt go with me? 
 My daughters shall thy fair nurses be, 
 They shall every night merry festival keep, 
 And rock thee with dancing and singing to sleep. 
 
 6. 
 
 "O father, my father, and see st thou not there 
 Erlking s dark daughters sweep fierce in the air?" 
 "My son, my son, quite plainly I see, 
 Tis nought but the boughs of yon willow tree." 
 
 7- 
 
 I love thee, I long for that fair form of thine, 
 Shrink not from me now, for by force thou art mine. 
 "O father, my father, he tears me from thee, 
 Some deadly harm he hath done to me." 
 
90 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 8. 
 
 The father shudders, he spurs the steed on, 
 And close to his bosom he presses his son, 
 He gains his home, all trembling with dread, 
 But in his strong arms the child was dead. 
 
 Whittier s version is by far superior to Geoghegan s. In the 
 first stanza, though Whittier has improved it by his better choice 
 in some of the words, and in smoothness of rhyme, he preserves 
 the same end-rhymes as his model ; and this is true also of the first 
 two verses of the second, third, fourth and fifth stanzas; but in 
 the last two verses of each of these stanzas he employs a different 
 rhyme. In the sixth and seventh stanzas, he employs throughout 
 different rhymes. The last two verses of the sixth seem to me 
 smoother and the choice of words better in the model, while in the 
 seventh, Whittier has greatly improved on the model. In the 
 eighth, the last two verses closely resemble those of Geoghegan. 
 Whittier probably knew Walter Scott s translation and he may 
 have known Lewis , but does not seem to have been influenced 
 by them. 
 
 Whittier expresses his appreciation of the beauty in Goethe s 
 works in his poem 145 To ", 1840. 
 
 "Beauty such as Goethe pictures, 
 Such as Shelly dreamed of, shed 
 
 Living warmth and starry brightness 
 Round that poor man s head." 
 
 In The Middlesex Standard for December 19, .1844, f 
 which Whittier was editor, appeared The Treasure Seeker, a 
 translation of Goethe s Der Schatzgraber, copied from the poems 
 and ballads of Goethe, in Blackivood s. 14 * 
 
 In the literary notices in The National Era for July 14, 1853, 
 in a review, by J. G. W., of Thalatta: A Book for the Sea-side, 
 Boston, Reed, Ticknor, and Fields, he refers to Goethe s Fisher. 
 
 145 Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition, page 172. 
 
 148 This translation is in Blackivood s Edinburgh Magazine for October, 
 
 1844, pages 423-24- 
 
Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 91 
 
 In his poem 147 to James T. Fields, 1858, Whittier s opinion 
 of Goethe seems to agree with Mr. Frank Stearns statement : 
 
 "Better his lot whose axe is swung 
 In Wartburg s woods, or that poor girl s 
 
 Who by the Ilm her spindle whirls 
 And sings the songs that Luther sung, 
 
 "Than his who, old and cold, and vain 
 At Weimar sat, a demigod, 
 
 And bowed with Jove s imperial nod 
 His votaries in and out again!" 
 
 He quotes from Goethe s Wilhelm Meister in the following 
 from John Woolmaris Journal, 1871 : 
 
 "Some idea of the lively interest which the fine literary 
 circle gathered around the hearth of Lamb felt in the beautiful 
 simplicity of Woolman s pages may be had from the diary of 
 Henry Crabb Robinson, one of their number, himself a man 
 of wide and varied culture, the intimate friend of Goethe, 
 Wordsworth, and Coleridge. In his notes for the first month, 
 1824, he says, after a reference to a sermon of his friend Irving, 
 which he feared would deter rather than promote belief: "How 
 different this from John Woolman s Journal I have been reading 
 at the same time! A perfect gem! His is a schdne Seele, a 
 beautiful soul." 148 
 
 In 1873, in the introduction to Child Life in Prose, Whit- 
 tier refers again to Goethe s Wilhelm Meister 1 and speaks with 
 appreciation of the sweetness of the "child-figure, Mignon". 
 
 WHITTIER AND ROMANTICISM. 
 
 The Romantic school, as applied to a movement in German 
 literature, was a revolt against methods and traditions which 
 claimed authority as classical. Classicism was an appeal to the 
 intellect, romanticism to the imagination, and a return to the 
 
 147 Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition, page 198. 
 
 148 Riverside Edition of Prose Works, page 317, Vol. III. 
 
 149 The reference is quoted later under the chapter on Child Life. 
 
92 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 romantic past. In the dawning days of the nineteenth century 
 German influence was potent beyond all others. In France the 
 movement was represented by such men as Victor Hugo and 
 Lamartine, and in England by Scott, Byron, Tennyson and a 
 host of others. The movement spread to New England and 
 declared itself in Whittier and Longfellow and Lowell, in Haw 
 thorne and Emerson and others. Whittier s part in the move 
 ment was important, as he goes at his work directly. He is at 
 his best in writing the legendary past of New England. Atten 
 tion has already been called to the influence of Lord Byron on 
 his works in the years 1829-33. We have just read in the last 
 chapter, of his interest in the German and French legends in con 
 nection with the devil, and in a later chapter, we will see that he 
 made use of other German legends for some of his poems. 
 
 His early romanticism may be illustrated in a poem not 
 included in his works, which appeared in The New England 
 Revievv, July 25, 1831, The Demon s Cave, with the following 
 note: "In the town of Chester, N. H., is a singular cavern known 
 by the name of The Devil s Den. Its entrance is on the southern 
 side of a rugged hill. It winds into the hill to a considerable 
 distance, and contains several large rooms or chambers. The 
 early settlers of the place supposed it to be the residence of the 
 Arch Enemy." The poem contains six stanzas. The last reads 
 as follows: 
 
 "And yet there is something to romance dear, 
 
 In this shadowy cave and its lingering fear, 
 Something which tells of another age 
 
 Of the wizard s wand, and the Sibyl s page 
 Of the fairy ring, and the haunted glen 
 
 Of the restless phantoms of murdered men 
 Of the feasts and visions of dreamy youth 
 
 Ere they passed away at the glance of truth ; 
 And I love even now to list the tale 
 
 Of the Demon s Cave and its haunted vale !" 
 
 J. G. W. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Tracy, a resident of Newburyport and a 
 friend of Whittier s, was a student and translator of Ger- 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 93 
 
 man literature and through him some of the writers of the 
 German Romantic school were opened up to Whittier. He speaks 
 in his article on Patucket Falls 150 of Tracy s translation of 
 Undine: 
 
 "My friend T., 151 favorably known as the translator of 
 Undine and as a writer of fine and delicate imagination, visited 
 Spicket Falls before the sound of a hammer or the click of a 
 trowel had been heard beside them. His journal of A Day on the 
 Merrimac gives a pleasing and vivid description of their original 
 appearance as viewed through the telescope of a poetic fancy. 
 The readers of Undine will thank me for a passage or two from 
 this sketch." 
 
 In the article on My Summer With Dr. Singletary 152 he 
 speaks again of Undine : 
 
 "Just back of the village, a bright, noisy stream, gushing out, 
 like a merry laugh, from the walnut and oak woods which 
 stretched far back to the north through a narrow break in the 
 hills, turned the great wheel of a grist-mill, and went frolicking 
 away, like a wicked Undine, under the very windows of the 
 brown, lilac-shaded house of Deacon Warner, the miller, as if 
 to tempt the good man s handsome daughters to take lessons in 
 dancing." 
 
 And again in "To - j^ios ]^{ nes Written from a 
 
 Summer Day s Excursion: 
 
 "Varied as varying Nature s ways, 
 Sprites of the river, woodland fays, 
 
 Or mountain nymphs, ye seem, 
 Free limbed Dianas on the green, 
 Loch Katrine s Ellen, or Undine, 
 Upon your favorite stream." 
 
 150 Vol. I of Prose Works, Riverside Edition, page 366. 
 
 151 Undine and Sintram and His Companions, from the German of Fouque 
 by Rev. Thomas Tracy, in Wiley and Putnam s "Library of Choice Reading", 
 No. III. 
 
 152 Vol. I of Prose Works, Riverside Edition, page 204. 
 158 Whittier s Poems, Cambridge Edition, page 188. 
 
94 Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 And in Our River: 15 - 
 
 "We only know the fond skies lean 
 
 Above it warm with blessing, 
 And the sweet soul of our Undine 
 Awakes to its caressing." 
 
 Also in At School-Close:^ 
 
 "The joy of Undine soul possessed, 
 
 The wakening sense, the strange delight 
 That swelled the fabled statues breast 
 And filled its clouded eyes with sight." 
 
 And in The Seeking of the Waterfall: 1 
 
 "Somewhere it laughed and sang, somewhere 
 
 Whirled in mad dance its misty hair, 
 But who had raised its veil, or seen 
 The rainbow skirts of that Undine?" 
 
 That Whittier was familiar with other works of Fouque 
 besides Undine is shown in the following passage in the article 
 The Agency of Evil: 1 
 
 "There is a beautiful moral in one of Fouque s miniature 
 romances, Die KohlerfaniUie. The fierce spectre, which rose 
 giant-like in its blood red mantle, before the selfish and mer 
 cenary merchant, ever increasing in size and terror with the 
 growth of evil and impure thought in the mind of the latter, 
 subdued by prayer, and penitence, and patient watchfulness over 
 the heart s purity, became a loving and gentle visitation of soft 
 light and meekest melody; a beautiful radiance, at times hover 
 ing and flowing on before the traveller, illuminating the bushes 
 and foliage of the mountain-forest; a lustre strange and lovely, 
 such as the soul may conceive, but no words express. He felt 
 its power in the depths of his being, felt it like the mystic breath 
 ing of the spirit of God ." 
 
 164 Whittier s Poems, Cambridge Edition, page 224. 
 
 m Whittier s Poems, Cambridge Edition, page 235. 
 
 1M Whittier s Poems, Cambridge Edition, page 162. 
 
 167 Whittier s Prose Works, Vol. Ill, Riverside Edition, page 263. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 95 
 
 He speaks of Novalis in the article on William Leggett: 
 "Holding, with Novalis, that the Christian religion is the 
 root of all democracy and the highest fact in the rights of man, 
 we regard the New Testament as the true political text 
 book, etc." 158 
 
 And of Rahel Varnhagen von Ense in his poem "To 
 
 ".159 
 
 "Or the blue-eyed German Rahel 
 Half -unconscious taught." 
 
 The influence of Heine s Lorelei is shown in Whittier s 
 verses from The Witch of Wenham: 160 
 
 "She weaves her golden hair, she sings 
 Her spell-song low and faint." 
 
 FURTHER TRANSLATION. 
 
 Besides the Erlking, about 1840, Whittier wrote a para 
 phrase of Spitta s Geduld, 1847. Another translation, which 
 was published wrongly in two periodicals under the title of Lines 
 from the German Lamiter, was in reality a translation from the 
 French of Lamartine. 
 
 LINES FROM THE GERMAN OF LAMITER. 
 This translation appeared in The Independent for September, 
 1901 (Vol. 53, p. 2079), with the following note by S. T. Pickard : 
 "There are hundreds of Whittier s early poems which were never 
 placed by him in any collection of his works. They are to be 
 found in the papers he edited, and to which he contributed in 
 the days before he consecrated all his powers to humanitarian 
 work. They gave him a measure of literary reputation which 
 must have gratified him at the time, but when he was baptized 
 into the new spirit which formed all his later work, he took pains 
 to prevent the collection of the verses written in the vein of an 
 outgrown ambition. His wish in this matter should be respected. 
 
 158 In Vol. II, Prose Works, Riverside Edition, page 185. 
 
 159 Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition, page 172. 
 
 160 Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition, page 117. 
 
96 Whittled s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 And yet, while studying his early work, I find some poems which 
 I fancy he would have preserved, if they had not been overlooked 
 when making his selections. Among these is the paraphrase from 
 the German, which I find in The Liberator of August 10, 1838." 
 Then follows the poem : 
 
 (Lines from the German of Lamiter by /. G. W.) 
 
 "Thought after thought ye thronging rise, 
 
 Like spring doves from the startled wood, 
 Bearing like them your sacrifice 
 
 Of music unto God ! 
 And shall these thoughts of joy and love 
 
 Come back again no more to me 
 Returning like the patriarch s dove 
 
 Wing-weary from the eternal sea 
 To bear within my longing arms 
 
 The promised bough of kindlier skies, 
 Plucked from the green immortal palms 
 
 Which shade the bowers of Paradise? 
 
 Child of the sea, the mountain stream 
 
 From its dark cavern hurries on, 
 Ceaseless by night and morning s beam, 
 
 By evening s star and noontide s sun 
 Until at last it sinks to rest 
 
 O erwearied in the waiting sea, 
 And moans upon its mother s breast 
 
 So turns my soul to the." 
 
 There is no German writer with the name of Lamiter and, 
 as has already been pointed out, these verses are a translation 
 from the French of Lamartine. 
 
 The Liberator made the mistake of publishing "German of 
 Lamiter" for French of Lamartine and Mr. Pickard copied it 
 as he found it in The Liberator. How The Liberator could have 
 made the mistake at the time seems very odd indeed, as the 
 poem in which the lines occur : Hymn, translated from the French 
 of Lamartine, by John G. Whittier, appeared the year before, 
 i837, 162 on its pages in the number of August i8th. 
 
 162 The translation, The Cry of My Soul, appeared the year before in the 
 Essex Gazette, July 30, 1836. 
 
Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 97 
 
 In Whittier s collected works are the translations of two odes 
 from Lamartine ; 163 Encore un hymne 164 and Le cri de L ame, 
 under the title, Hymns from the French of Lamartine. 
 
 If we compare the above verses with these, we will find that 
 they are the same as his translations of "Encore un Hymne", 
 beginning with the middle of the fifth stanza to the end of the 
 sixth verse. The only difference being that in the Liberator for 
 August 18, 1837, the last verse of the sixth stanza reads: 
 
 "Which shadow Paradise" 165 
 
 while in August 10, 1838, it is printed 
 
 "Which shade the bowers of Paradise." 
 
 Then one verse is omitted and the eighth stanza is given ex 
 actly the same as that of August 18, 1837, which is exactly like 
 the eighth verse in Whittier s Collected Poems. 
 
 THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE. 
 
 Whittier published A Free Paraphrase of the German in 
 The National Era, May 13, 1847. 
 
 Among the unpublished letters in Amesbury, Mass., is the 
 following letter 166 to Whittier from James Mearns, Curate of 
 Owston, Owston Ferry, Rotherham, Eng., February 18, 1883 : 
 
 "The work of tracing out translations from German hymns 
 into English, for behoof of the Dictionary of Hymnology, 167 
 now in preparation for publication by Mr. John Murray, of Lon 
 don, has been assigned to me. A little poem of yours : 
 
 To weary hearts, to mourning homes 
 
 appears in a number of English and American collections. 
 . . . In my copy of your Complete Poetical Works , 2d 
 
 163 Cambridge Edition, pages 420-421. 
 
 164 The ode Encore Un Hymne may be found in Harmonies Poetiques et 
 Religieuses, by De Lamartine, published by Hachette et Cie, Paris, 1911, page 
 205, and Le Cri de L Ame, page 227. 
 
 165 This is also the reading in the collected works. 
 
 166 Original letter in possession of S. T. Pickard, Amesbury, Mass. 
 
 167 Dictionary of Hymnology, published by John Murray, London, 1907. 
 
98 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Ed., London: Macmillan & Co., 1874, I find it page 121 among 
 miscellaneous poems earlier than 1850, and marked A free para 
 phrase from the German . 
 
 "I have not found anything so much resembling it as a hymn 
 by C. J. P. Spitta in his Psalter und Harfe, 1883, the first stanza 
 of which runs (five stanzas in all) : 
 
 "Es zieht ein stiller Engel 
 
 Durch dieses Erdenland, 
 Zum Trost fur Erdenmangel 
 
 Hat ihn der Herr gesandt. 
 In seinem Blick ist Frieden 
 
 Und milde, sanfte Huld, 
 O folg ihm stets hienieden 
 
 Dem Engel der Geduld!" 
 
 In Murray s Dictionary of Hymnology, 1 * 8 we find the follow 
 ing: " Es zieht ein stiller Engel , C. J. P. Spitta. In the first 
 series, 1833, of his Psalter und Harfe (p. 116) in five stanzas of 
 eight lines, entitled Patience. This beautiful little poem appears 
 in many recent collections of German sacred poetry, etc." 
 
 "The only translation in common use is : To weary hearts, to 
 mourning homes, by J. G. Whittier, in four stanzas of six lines : 
 
 "Mr. Whittier informs us that it was written in 1845 and 
 first published in his poems, Boston, U. S., 1849, P a g e 2O2 m ms 
 Poetical Works, London: MacMillan & Co., 1847, P a g e I21 J it is 
 correctly described as A free Paraphrase from the German . It 
 has been included in The South Place Collection, 1873, Dr. 
 Martineau s Hymns of Praise and Prayer, 1873, and Horder s 
 Congregational Hymnal, 1 884 ; and in America, omitting stanza 
 II in Hedge and Huntingons Collections, 1853, Plymouth Col 
 lections, 1855, and Baptist Praise Book, 1871." 
 
 Whittier s poem follows Spitta s very closely in thought, and 
 many of the single verses are almost exact translations. Spitta s 
 
 Rev. James Mearns, M. A., Vicar of Rushden, Buntingford, was assistant 
 editor. 
 
 168 A Dictionary of Hymnology, edited by John Julian, D. D. Revised edi 
 tion published by John Murray, London, 1907, page 355. 
 
Whittiers Relation to German Life and Thought 99 
 
 poem is entitled Gcduld and Whittier s The Angel of Patience. 
 The form and metre of the two hymns is different, however. There 
 are four stanzas in Whittier s poem and five in Spitta s. 169 Whit- 
 tier has but six verses in each stanza, while Spitta has eight. 
 
 The first two and last two verses of the first stanza of Whit 
 tier s poem resemble very closely the first four verses of Spitta s 
 quoted above: 
 
 "To weary hearts, to mourning homes, 
 God s meekest angel gently comes : 
 
 And yet in tenderest love, our dear 
 
 And Heavenly Father sends him here." 170 
 
 The first two verses of Whittier s second stanza are almost 
 an exact translation of the fifth and sixth verses of Spitta s first 
 stanza : 
 
 "In seinem Blick ist Frieden 
 
 Und milde, sanfte Huld." 
 
 "There s quiet in that angel s glance, 
 
 There s rest in his still countenance!" 
 
 The third stanza of Whittier s resembles throughout in 
 thought the third stanza of Spitta s hymn : 
 
 3. "Er macht zu linder Wehmuth 
 
 Den herbsten Seelenschmerz 
 Und taugt in stille Demuth 
 
 Das ungestiime Herz, 
 Er macht die finstre Stunde 
 
 Allmahlich wieder hell, 
 Er heilet jede Wunde 
 
 Gewiss, wenn atich nicht schnell." 
 
 Whittier s third stanza reads : 
 
 3. "Angel of Patience! sent to calm 
 
 Our feverish brows with cooling palm; 
 
 169 This may be found in C. J. P. Spitta; Psalter und Harfe, J. Kohler, 
 Philadelphia, 1888, S. 116. 
 
 170 Cambridge Edition of Poetical Works, page 425. 
 
ioo Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 To lay the storms of hope and fear, 
 And reconcile life s smile and tear ; 
 The throbs of wounded pride to still, 
 And make our own our Father s will !" 
 
 The last four verses of Whittier s second stanza contain the 
 thought and are an exact translation of parts of Spitta s fourth 
 
 stanza : 
 
 4. "Er ziirnt nicht deinen Thranen 
 Wenn er dich trosten will, 
 Er tadelt nicht dein Sehnen, 
 
 Nur macht s fromm und still. 
 Und wenn im Sturmestoben 
 
 Du murrend f ragst : warum ? 
 So deutet er nach oben, 
 
 Mild lachelnd, aber stumm." 
 
 "He mocks no grief with idle cheer, 
 Nor wounds with words the mourner s ear 
 But ills and woes he may not cure 
 He kindly trains us to endure." 
 
 Whittier s last stanza is a combination in thought of the first 
 part of Spitta s fifth stanza and the last part of the second 
 stanza. 
 
 The first four verses of Spitta s fifth stanza are : 
 
 "Er hat fur jede Frage 
 Nicht Antwort gleich bereit, 
 Sein Wahlspruch heisst : ertragen, 
 Die Ruhestatt ist nicht weit !" 
 
 The last four verses of the second stanza: 
 
 "Denn willst du ganz verzagen, 
 Hat er doch guten Muth; 
 Er hilft das Kreuz dir tragen, 
 Und macht noch alles gut." 
 
 Whittier s last stanza reads : 
 
 "O thou who mournest on thy way, 
 With longings for the close of day ; 
 He walks with thee, that Angel kind, 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 101 
 
 And gently whispers, Be resigned : 
 
 Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell 
 
 The dear Lord ordereth all things well ! 
 
 To RONGE. 
 
 Among the unpublished letters 171 to Whittier, is one to the 
 poet from his cousin Ann E. Wendell, of Philadelphia, I2th mo., 
 24, 1846, written a few months before Whittier s poem To Ronge 
 appeared. She speaks of a visit to her house of Benjamin 
 Sebohm, of England, a native of Germany, and says: 
 
 "I inquired his opinion of Ronge and found it very unfavor 
 able to him as a religious character, but that many of his fol 
 lowers were very conscientious dissenters from the Catholic 
 Church; he says he is pastor of over 10,000 persons at Breslau. 
 Czersky, 172 he spoke much more favorably of, thought him an 
 experimental Christian ; he had hoped the same of Ronge until he 
 saw confessions of faith by which he was convinced that the 
 omissions were not occasioned by ignorance, but by a disbelief in 
 the truths he omitted ; he has recently been in Germany and con 
 versed with some of the followers of Ronge. I wish thee could 
 have conversed with him about these things. Thou could have 
 draw r n forth so much more than I could." 
 
 Whittier s poem 173 appeared in The Democratic Review for 
 March, 1846. The following head-note explains its origin: 
 
 "This was written after reading the powerful and manly 
 protest of Johannes Ronge 174 against the pious fraud of the 
 Bishop of Treves. The bold movement of the young Catholic priest 
 
 171 Letter in possession of Mr. Pickard, Amesbury, Mass. 
 
 172 A few months before the congregation of German Catholics had been 
 formed by Ronge in Breslau, a similar movement had been organized Octo 
 ber, 1844, at Schneidemiihle, under the leadership of their Vicar, Joh. Czerski. 
 These dissenters from the Catholic Church called themselves Christian Cath 
 olics. Czerski attended the sessions of the German Catholics at Leipzig, but 
 when the formulas of the faith were drawn up similar to what had been 
 made at Breslau, he refused to sign because the Divinity of Christ had been 
 ignored. 
 
 173 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 179. The note is not in 
 the Democratic Review. 
 
 174 In the Sachsische Vaterlandsblatter for October 15, 1844, he made a 
 vigorous attack upon the Bishop Arnoldi of Trier, for having ordered the 
 exposition of the holy coat of Trier, said to be the seamless robe of Christ. 
 Numberless pilgrims made journeys to the Cathedral in Trier to get the 
 
IO2 W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 of Prussian Silesia seemed to me full of promise to the cause of 
 political as well as religious liberty in Europe. That it failed was 
 due partly to the faults of the reformer, but mainly to the dis 
 agreement of the Liberals of Germany upon a matter of dogma, 
 which prevented them from unity of action. Ronge was born in 
 Silesia in 1813 and died in October, 1887. His autobiography 
 was translated into English and published in London in 1846." 
 
 Whittier s earnestness in matters of reform are well illus 
 trated in this poem: 
 
 To RONGE. 
 
 "Strike home, strong-hearted man ! Down to the root 
 Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel. 
 Thy work is to hew down. In God s name then 
 Put nerve into thy task. Let other men 
 Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit 
 The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal. 
 Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy blows 
 Fall heavy as the Suabian s iron hand, 
 On crown or crosier, which shall interpose 
 Between thee and the weal of Fatherland. 
 Leave creeds to closet idlers. First of all, 
 Shake thou all German dream-land with the fall 
 Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk 
 Was spared of old by Erfurt s stalwart monk. 
 # * * * # 
 
 Be warned by Luther s error. Nor like him 
 
 When the roused Teuton dashes from his limb 
 
 The rusted chain of ages, help to bind 
 
 His hands for w r hom thou claim st the freedom of the mind." 
 
 ATTITUDE OF GERMANY TO SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The following article by Whittier on the attitude of Ger 
 many to slavery in the United States appeared in The National 
 Era, July 6, 1848, with the title, Our Diplomacy-Trouble Abroad: 
 
 benefit derived from this holy relic. Rouge s attack on the Bishop led to his 
 excommunication. This brought him the sympathy of many people who were 
 indignant over the frauds and evil practices of the church. Almost immedi 
 ately a new sect was formed under his leadership at Breslau, December, 1844, 
 bearing the name of German Catholics. Ronge now traveled from place to 
 place preaching, and under his leadership new congregations sprung up in 
 all parts of Germany. The movement, however, soon received checks by the 
 government, as its members were suspected of undermining religion and of 
 encouraging revolution. 
 
Whittiers Relation to German Life and Thought 103 
 
 "What from Germany, fermenting like its beer, with new 
 republicanism? A society of abolition propagandist!!, composed 
 of learned professors, statesmen and divines, just established for 
 the express and avowed purpose of acting upon the slave system 
 of the United States, through the German emigrants, who are 
 fast filling up our new States and Territories. Hear its pros 
 pectus: 
 
 Convinced of the necessity of using our utmost efforts for 
 the abolition of slavery, as the most dreadful evil ever inflicted 
 upon man, and the source of unutterable misery to millions of 
 mankind ; 
 
 Persuaded that it has now become a sacred duty for the 
 German people to unite with other nations in endeavoring to 
 exterminate the high treason against the human race ; 
 
 " Impressed, moreover with the conviction that it is our 
 duty to preserve our countrymen, emigrating to countries where 
 slavery exists, from its foul contamination, 
 
 " And having been repeatedly called upon by friends in the 
 United States to assist in opposing the system of slavery which 
 obtains there We the undersigned, have constituted ourselves 
 into a provisional committee, for the organization of a German 
 Society, for the abolition of slavery, and have resolved from this 
 time forth to take all such steps as may be necessary for accom 
 plishing the desired end. 
 
 "What from Austria and Hungary? A few years ago we 
 remember seeing in the papers, a letter from an American travel 
 ling in Europe, who, writing from Vienna, states that he had 
 a pleasant interview with Prince Metternich, and that when, on 
 being asked his profession or employment at home, he answered 
 that he was a planter and owned a large number of slaves. The 
 Hungarian nobles in attendance congratulated him upon it, declar 
 ing that they too were slave-holders; and so Absolutism and 
 Democracy shook hands together. Now, Prince Metternich has 
 fled, and the Emperor is following him; and amidst shouts of 
 freedom and equality, the downfall of serfdom is decreed." 
 
 J. G. W. 
 
IO4 Whittiers Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 In an article in his prose works called The Abolitionists, 175 
 he refers to the earlier attitude of the Germans toward slavery : 
 
 "All history, ancient and modern, is full of warning on this 
 point. Need I refer to the many revolts of the Roman and 
 Grecian slaves, the bloody insurrection of Etruria, the horrible 
 servile wars of Sicily and Capua? Or, to come down to later 
 times, to France in the fourteenth century, Germany in the six 
 teenth, to Malta in the last?" 
 
 WHITTIER AND THE GERMAN MYSTICS. 
 
 Whittier has written three poems on the German mystics : 
 T aider, 1853, The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, 1872, The Hymn of 
 the Dunk ers, 1877, and The Vision of Echard, 1878. His interest 
 in the mysticism of the East is clearly illustrated in his poems on 
 Eastern subjects, and in many of his letters to his friends. 
 
 Mysticism appears in connection with the human mind to 
 grasp the divine essence or the ultimate reality of things, and to 
 enjoy the blessedness of actual communion with the highest. The 
 first is the philosophic and theoretic side of mysticism, the second 
 the religious and practical. The thought that is most intensely 
 present with the mystic, is that of supreme, all-pervading, and in 
 dwelling power, in whom all things are one. Hence the utterances 
 of mysticism are more or less speculative in character. On the 
 practical side, it maintains the possibility of direct intercourse with 
 God not through any external media such as historical revela 
 tion, etc. but by a species of ecstatic transfusion or identifica 
 tion, in which the individual becomes in very truth "partaker of 
 the divine Nature". God ceases to be an object to him and 
 becomes an experience. 176 
 
 Mysticism is not a name applicable to any particular sys 
 tem; there have been mystical elements in various forms of 
 religion from the earliest times. The German mind was a fruit 
 ful soil for mysticism, and its doctrines were formulated by Eckart 
 at the close of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth 
 
 m Riverside Edition of Whittier s Prose Works, Vol. Ill, page 71. 
 
 1T * Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
IVhittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 105 
 
 centuries. He developed the philosophical basis for German 
 mysticism. In the fourteenth century German Mysticism is repre 
 sented by such men as Tauler, Nicholas of Basle, and the un 
 known person who wrote the Theologia Germanica, 177 a trans 
 lation of which is in Whittier s Library in Amesbury, Mass. 
 
 Whittier speaks in the highest praise of this book in Dora 
 Greenwell: 
 
 "The unknown author of that book which Luther loved next 
 to his Bible, the Theologia Germanica, is just as truly at home 
 in this present age, and in the ultra Protestanism of New England ; 
 as in the heart of Catholic Europe, and in the fourteenth cen 
 tury. For such books know no limitations of time or place; they 
 have the perpetual freshness and fitness of truth ; they speak out 
 of profound experience : heart answers to heart as we read them ; 
 the spirit that is in man, and the inspiration that giveth under 
 standing, bear witness to them. The bent and stress of their 
 testimony are the same, whether written in this or a past century, 
 by Catholic or Quaker: self-renunciation, reconcilement to the 
 Divine will through simple faith in the Divine goodness, and the 
 love of it which must needs follow its recognition, the life of 
 Christ made our own by self-denial and sacrifice, and the fellow 
 ship of His suffering for the good of others, the indwelling Spirit, 
 leading into all truth, the Divine Word nigh us, even in our 
 hearts. They have little to do with creeds, or schemes of doc 
 trine, or the partial and inadequate plans of salvation invented 
 by human speculation and ascribed to Him who, it is sufficient to 
 know, is able to save unto the uttermost all who trust in Him. 
 They insist upon simple faith and holiness of life, rather than 
 rituals or modes of worship; they leave the merely formal, cere 
 monial, and temporal part of religion to take care of itself, and 
 earnestly seek for the substantial, the necessary, and the per 
 manent." 178 
 
 Tauler 179 was more practical in his teachings than Eckhart 
 and touched on all sides the problems of spiritual and moral life. 
 
 377 This treatise was discovered and published by Luther in 1516. 
 
 178 Vol. Ill, Riverside Edition, Prose Works, page 285. 
 
 179 Robertson, History of German Literature, page 167. 
 
io6 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 He, too, preached the complete union of the soul with God but 
 avoided Eckhart s pantheism. 
 
 Like all true mystics, Tauler, 180 insists on the fact of an 
 "Inner Light the master light of all the soul s seeing." He says 
 that the Friends of God have "an inward, divine knowledge, a 
 Divine Light which illuminates them and raises them into union 
 with God". "This light gives man all truth (alle Wahrheit) 
 a \vonderful discernment, more perfect than can be gained in 
 any other manner here below." "The vision of the eternal Light 
 makes their souls so luminous that they could teach all men if 
 the occasion for it came." "They become endowed (by this 
 Divine Light) with a perfect conscience in respect to what they 
 ought to do and what to leave undone." "The Divine illumina 
 tion gives a man a marvellous discernment, more perfect than 
 he is able to acquire on earth in any other manner." "In one 
 short hour you can learn more from the inward voice than you 
 could learn from a man in a thousand years." 
 
 I have dwelt especially on this part of the doctrine of the 
 mystics which has a close affinity to the teachings of the Friends 
 the doctrine of guidance by the Inner Light or the voice within, 
 and the belief in Divine inspiration. It is this that drew Whit- 
 tier, who all his life remained true to the teachings of the Friends, 
 to the mystics Eckhart and Tauler. 
 
 Dr. Rufus M. Jones, of Haverford College, himself a 
 Friend, defines "Quakerism" as follows: 181 "The Society of 
 Friends a religious body which has made a serious attempt to 
 unite inward, mystical religion with active social endeavors, and 
 to maintain a religious fellowship with a rigid ecclesiastical sys 
 tem, and with large scope for personal initiative, immediate rev 
 elation and individual responsibility." 
 
 In an article on Whittier the Mystic in The American 
 Friend, 1 * 2 Dr. Jones says : "I am using the term mystic to 
 mean one who has a direct consciousness of relationship with 
 
 380 Rufus M. Jones, Mystical Religion, page 276. 
 
 181 Mystical Religion, by R. M. Jones. Introduction, page 33. 
 
 ** American Friend, 12 mo. 12, 1907. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 107 
 
 God." "Whittier is more fundamentally mystic than any other 
 American poet. His mysticism does not rest on sporadic experi 
 ence, or on isolated lines; it is a structural part of his way of 
 thinking, and it is the very warp and woof of his poetry." He 
 quotes from a letter to the Friends Review, 2nd mo., 1870, in 
 which Whittier says: "I have an jinshaken faith in the one dis 
 tinctive doctrine of Quakerism the Light within the Imman 
 ence of the Divine Spirit." The future hope of our religion 
 lies not in setting the letter above the spirit, not in substituting 
 type and symbol, and oriental figure and hyperbole for the simple 
 truths they were meant to represent; not in schools of theology; 
 not in much speaking and noise and vehemence but in heeding 
 more closely the Inward Guide and Teacher, in faith in Christ; 
 not merely in the historical manifestation of the Divine Love to 
 humanity, but in his living presence in the heart open to receive 
 him. " " 
 
 TAULER. 
 
 Whittier says of Tauler in Dora Greenzvell: 183 "Tauler in 
 medieval times and Woolman 184 in the last century are among 
 the most earnest teachers of the inward life and spiritual nature 
 of Christianity, yet both were distinguished for practical benevo 
 lence. They did not separate the two great commandments. 
 Tauler strove with equal intensity of zeal to promote the tem 
 poral and spiritual welfare of men. In the dark and evil time 
 in which he lived, amidst the untold horrors of the "Black 
 Plague", he illustrated by deeds of charity and mercy his doctrine 
 of disinterested benevolence." 
 
 The poem on Tauler first appeared in The National Era for 
 April 21, 1853. 
 
 In Whittier s Library is a book, The Lives, Sentiments and 
 Sufferings of Some of the Reformers and Martyrs, by William 
 Hodgson, Philadelphia, 1867, which contains the incident in 
 Tauler s life, related in the poem. As Whittier s poem was writ- 
 
 183 Prose Works of Whittier, Vol. Ill, pages 301-302. Riverside Edition. 
 
 184 John Woolman a distinguished minister of the Society of Friends and 
 one of the first to protest against slavery in the United States. 
 
io8 W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 ten much earlier, he could not, however, have made use of this 
 book. 
 
 Whittier s power of describing vividly things that he had 
 only seen through the eyes of his friends is well illustrated in 
 his description of Strassburg Cathedral in this poem, where he 
 says: 
 
 "So entering with a changed and cheerful step 
 The city gates, he saw, far down the street, 
 A mighty shadow break the light of noon, 
 Which tracing backward till its airy lines 
 Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes 
 O er broad facade and lofty pediment, 
 O er architrave and freize and sainted niche, 
 Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise 
 Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where 
 In the noon-brightness the great Minister s tower, 
 Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, 
 Rose like a visible prayer." 185 
 
 EC HARD. 
 
 Whittier s cousin, Mrs. Abbey J. Woodman, 186 writes of this 
 poem: "Mr. Whittier thought diligently upon spiritual subjects, 
 and was fond of discussions which disclosed the views of others 
 upon themes regarding the exercise of Faith and trustful reliance 
 upon divine Goodness, a term which, in his comprehension, 
 embraces the Power that controls the Universe. Such matters 
 were the fire-side topics of conversation for many winter evenings 
 previous to the writing and publication of his poem entitled, 
 The Vision of Echard, a poem very dear to those who contem 
 plated with its author each point of that far-reaching and signifi 
 cant Vision/ " 
 
 The poem appeared in the September number of The 
 Atlantic Monthly, 1878, and the same year in book form; The 
 Vision of Echard and other poems. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 
 &Co. 
 
 183 Cambridge Edition of Poems, page 45. 
 
 186 Reminiscences of John G. Whittier s Life at Oak Knoll, Danvers, Mass., 
 by Mrs. Abbey J. Woodman, Salem, Mass., 1908, page 21. 
 
Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 109 
 
 The monk sits by the wayside well and dreams : 
 
 "He felt the heart of silence 
 
 Throb with a soundless word, 
 And by the inward ear alone 
 A spirit s voice he heard. 
 
 "And the spoken word seemed written 
 
 On air and wave and sod, 
 And the bending walls of sapphire 
 Blazed with the thought of God:" 
 
 ***** 
 The voice of God within his soul speaks to him; 
 
 "O blind ones, outward groping, 
 
 The idle quest forego, 
 Who listens to his inward voice. 
 Alone of him shall know. 
 
 "His love all love exceeding 
 
 The heart must needs recall, 
 Its self-surrendering freedom 
 Its loss that gaineth all. 
 
 "Have ye not still my witness 
 
 Within yourself alway, 
 My hand that on the keys of life 
 For bliss or bale I lay? 
 
 "Still, in perpetual judgment 
 
 I hold assize within, 
 With sure reward of holiness, 
 And dread rebuke of sin. 
 
 "A light, a guide, a warning, 
 
 A presence ever near, 
 Through the deep silence of the flesh 
 I reach the inward ear. 
 
 "My Gerizim and Ebal 
 
 Are in each human soul, 
 The still, small voice of blessing, 
 And Sinai s thunder roll. 
 
io Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "The stern behest of duty, 
 
 The doom-book open thrown, 
 The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear, 
 Are with yourselves alone." 
 
 Then up rose Master Echard, 
 And marvelled: Can it be 
 
 That here, in dream and vision, 
 The Lord hath talked with me ? 
 
 "He sought the vale of Elzbach 
 His burdened soul to free, 
 Where the foot-hills of the Eifel 
 Are glassed in Laachersee. 
 
 "And, in his Order s kloster, 
 
 He sat, in night-long parle, 
 With Tauler of the Friends of God, 
 And Nicholas of Basle. 
 
 "And lo! the twain made answer: 
 
 Yea, brother, even thus 
 The Voice above all voices 
 Hath spoken unto us. 
 
 " The world will have its idols, 
 
 And flesh and sense their sign: 
 But the blinded eyes shall open, 
 And the gross ear be fine. 
 
 " What if the vision tarry? 
 
 God s time is always best, 
 The true Light shall be witnessed 
 The Christ within confessed. 
 
 " Tn mercy or in judgment 
 
 He shall turn and overturn 
 Till the heart shall be his temple 
 Where all of Him shall learn. 
 
 In the chapter on The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, Whittier s in 
 terest in the writings of Jacob Boehme, 1575-1624, the father 
 of the chief development of mysticism in modern Germany, has 
 
it tier s Relation to German Life and Thought in 
 
 already been referred to. Boehme professed that a distinct and 
 inward illumination was the only source of his speculation, but 
 made no pretense to ecstatic raptures. 
 
 His works were translated into English and were known to 
 George Fox and the early Quakers, upon whom they no doubt 
 had great influence. Regular societies of Boehmenists were 
 formed in England and Holland. 
 
 In Whittier s poem, The Shoemakers, he says of the shoe 
 maker mystic of Gorlitz: 
 
 "Still from his book, a mystic seer, 
 The soul of Behmen teaches." 
 
 We have seen also Whittier s references in The Pennsylvania 
 Pilgrim to Philipp Jacob Spener, 1635-1705, the chief repre 
 sentative of German Pietism at the close of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 Another poem of Whittier s on mysticism, is The Mystic s 
 Christmas, 1882, which tells the story of a pious monk who sat 
 apart from his brothers at the Christmas festival to find within 
 himself the Christ spirit born: 
 
 "I listen, from no mortal tongue, 
 To hear the song the angels sung ; 
 And wait within myself to know 
 The Christmas lilies bud and blow. 
 
 "The outward symbols disappear 
 From him whose inward sight is clear, 
 And small must be the choice of days 
 To him who fills them all with praise ! 
 
 "Keep while you need it, brothers mine, 
 With honest zeal your Christmas sign, 
 But judge not him who every morn 
 Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born !" 
 
 Whittier s belief in guidance by the "Inner Light" is ex 
 pressed in most of his religious poems. 
 
 B. O. Flower says of Whittier s mysticism: "Interesting as 
 is the New England poet when considered as the inspired poet 
 of freedom, as the charming lyric poet and graphic delineator 
 of New England life, and dear as he is to us as the simple 
 
H2 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 and sincere man, it is as the true mystic or inspired teacher of 
 the higher life, that he appeals especially to the large and rapidly 
 increasing number of persons who, along various lines of thought 
 and experience, are being brought today into what is essentially 
 a deeply spiritual attitude. The voice of God within or The 
 Inner Light is becoming a far greater reality to the conscience 
 of our civilization than mammon worshipping and easy going 
 conventionalists imagine." 187 
 
 Flower cites The Eternal Goodness 188 and verses from In 
 Quest. 18 * 
 
 Rufus Jones in the article mentioned in The American 
 Friend, quotes the following poems as illustrating especially the 
 mysticism of our Quaker poets: "My Namesake, 19 ** To with a 
 copy from John Woolman s Journal, 1 ^ Trinitas, 192 The Shadow 
 and the Light, 193 Andrew Rykmans Prayer,* The Meeting, * 
 and In Quest/ 196 
 
 WHITTIER AND TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 Transcendentalism, according to the Kantian philosophy, is 
 the transcending or going beyond empiricism, or human experi 
 ence, and ascertaining a priori the fundamental principles of hu 
 man knowledge. Kant insists that in ultimate matters of religion 
 reason is not sufficient. Schelling and Hegel claim to have dis 
 covered the absolute identity of the objective and subjective in 
 human knowledge, or of things and human conceptions of them; 
 therefore with them, Transcendentalism claims to have a true 
 knowledge of all things, material and immaterial, human and 
 divine, as far as the mind is capable of knowing them. The 
 
 187 Whittier, Prophet, Seer and Man, by B. O. Flower, Boston, 1896, page 
 105. 
 
 588 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 442. 
 
 189 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 451. 
 
 190 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 393. 
 
 191 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 171. 
 
 192 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 434. 
 
 193 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 437. 
 184 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 439. 
 198 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 445. 
 196 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 451. 
 
Whittled s Relation to German Life and Thought 113 
 
 extreme views of the empiricists trust to experience alone ; while 
 the extreme Transcendentalists lose sight of the relations, which 
 facts and phenomena sustain to be principles, and hence lead to a 
 kind of philosophy, or a use of language, which is vague, obscure, 
 fantastic, or extravagant. The most famous example of the 
 pseudo-philosophic use of the term, is for a movement of thought, 
 which was prominent in New England from about 1830 to 1850. 
 This movement has several aspects, philosophical, theological, 
 social and economic. It took its rise to a large extent in the 
 study of German (and to a less extent of French) philosophy at 
 a time when German philosophy was most metaphysical and 
 German literature most romantic. "Before Charming died, in 
 1842, you could find in Boston few educated people who could 
 not talk with glib delight about German philosophy, German 
 literature, and German music." 197 
 
 The chief organ of the Transcendentalists was The Dial and 
 its moving spirit, the editor, Margaret Fuller, who translated 
 many of the works of the German Transcendentalists and wrote 
 articles defending them. Her favorite German author was 
 Goethe. The movement was the American Storm and Stress, a 
 revolution against conventionality, a movement of inquiry, and 
 assertion of the worth and dignity of the individual. Individu 
 ality, self-reliance, personal development, inspiration, the over- 
 soul, mind the only reality ; these were constant expressions used 
 by the writers of the movement. "The Transcendentalists were 
 too far from orthodox to trouble themselves about a Christian 
 God, but they believed in the Inner Light as enthusiastically as 
 ever Quakers did, and they followed it almost as ardently." 198 
 
 The doctrines of Transcendentalism and Quakerism are 
 thus compared by William Sloane Kennedy : 199 
 
 "The principles of the sect are all summed up in the phrases 
 Freedom and the Inner Light. Historically considered, Ouaker- 
 
 197 Literary History of America, by Barrett Wendell, New York, 1911, page 
 296. 
 
 1W A Literary History of America, by Barrett Wendell, 1911, page 299. 
 
 1W William Sloane Kennedy, John G. Whittier, His Life, Genius and Writ 
 ings, Boston, 1892, page 182. 
 
 
ii4 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 ism is a product of the ferment that followed the Civil War in 
 England two centuries ago. Considered abstractly, or as a 
 congeries of principles, it has a sociological and a philosophical 
 root, both of these running back into the great tap-root, love of 
 freedom. . . . Sociologically speaking, Quakerism is pure 
 democracy^ an exaltation of the majesty of the individual and 
 of the mass of the people. It is the pin-e_prgcifdtat.._.of Chris 
 tianity. It is a protest against the hypocrisy, formalism and 
 tyranny of priestcraft, kingcraft and aristocracy. Philosophi 
 cally, its theory of the Inner Light is identical with the doctrine 
 of idealism or innate ideas held by Descartes, Fichte, Schelling 
 and Cousin. It means individualism, a return to the primal 
 sanities of the soul. In the words of Descartes, I think, there 
 fore, I am . My thinking soul is the ultimate source of ideas 
 and truth. In that serene holy of holies full-grown ideas leap 
 into being subjective, a priori, needing no sense preception for 
 their genesis. 
 
 "But Transcendentalism differed from Quakerism in this : 
 the former JiddJhjt^i^jnumination^Ll^ mind \vas_a natural 
 process; but Quakerism maintajn^thatkj JLJ^HBiny^ ra ^ 
 process, the work of the Holy Ghost. And herein Quakerism is 
 inferior to Transcendentalism. But it is superior to it in that it 
 does not believe in the infallibility of individual institutions, but 
 considers the true criterion of truth to be the universal reason, 
 the consensus of the competent." 
 
 George Willis Cooke 200 says it is impossible to separate the 
 movement of Transcendentalism from the names of Emerson, 
 Lowell, Thorean, Whittier, Whitman and a large company of 
 our lesser poets and prose writers. 
 
 However, only where the Friends belieX-a^rjees_with that 
 of the Transcendentalists, i. e., the belief in guidance by the Inner 
 Light and the emphasis which they put upon faith, so far is 
 Whittier a Transcendentalist, but no further. Their vague, 
 metaphysical conceptions did not appeal to him and he expresses 
 
 200 The Poets of Transcendentalism, an Anthology, by Geo. Willis Cooke, 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1903. Introduction. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 115 
 
 his views most energetically on the subject, in an editorial in 
 The National Era, September 16, 1847, on The Herald of Truth, 
 published at Cincinnati, L. A. Hine, editor. Whittier praises the 
 paper and goes on to say : 
 
 "Of the philosophy and religious views of The Herald, we 
 can only say that we have not been able so fully to comprehend 
 them, as to be qualified to sit in judgment upon them. We have 
 occasionally noted a degree of assumption and dogmatism, which 
 by no means commends itself to our taste. Some of its writers, 
 moreover, deal quite too freely in the cant of Transcendental 
 ism. 201 Plain, common, old-fashioned Saxon words furnish the 
 best medium of thought. The apostle never gave sounder advice 
 than that which discouraged among his disciples the use of un 
 known tongues . He tells us, indeed, that lie that speaketh in 
 an unknown tongue edifieth himself, but we greatly question 
 whether the same could be said of our modern philosophy, while 
 engaged in airing its vocabulary ." 
 
 Earlier than this, in a letter to Edward Everett, 202 Governor 
 of Massachusetts, in The Liberator of February 20, 1836, refer 
 ring to Everett s doctrines on anti-slavery, he says of German 
 metaphysics : 
 
 "If sir, in the Aulae of Gottingen if amidst the wild 
 mysteries of German metaphysics, I had imbibed doctrines like 
 these, I would have turned my back forever on my native land." 
 
 In Whittier s Stranger in Lowell?* occurs this reference to 
 Transcendental philosophy : 
 
 That comfortable philosophy which modern Transcenden 
 talism has but dimly shadowed forth that poetic agrarianism, 
 which gives all to each and each to all is the real life of this 
 City of Unwork." 
 
 In a review of Mirth and Medicine, poems by Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes (Boston: Ticknor & Company), in The 
 National Era, January n, 1849, Whittier remarks: 
 
 201 The word cant was written in italics. 
 
 202 This article is quoted more fully under Luther s hymn, "Ein feste 
 Burg, etc.". 
 
 203 The Stranger in Lowell, by John Greenleaf Whittier, Boston, 1845, page 
 73- 
 
1 16 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "Witness this thrust at our German-English writers: 
 
 Essays so dark, Champollion might despair 
 To guess what mummy of a thought was there, 
 Where our poor English, striped with foreign phrase, 
 Looks like a zebra in a parson s chaise/ 
 
 "Or this at our Transcendental friends : 
 
 Deluded infants ! will they never know 
 Some doubts must darken o er the world below, 
 Though all the Platos of the nursery trail 
 Their clouds of glory at the go-cart s tail. 
 
 "The chief defect of the poetry of Transcendentalism is 
 that it is too philosophical. Its largest intent is ethical or re 
 ligious and not artistic. Beauty is not its chief inspiration, but 
 thought. . . . It is not written to please, but to convince. 
 It contains a gospel and not an appeal to emotion or imagination. 
 
 These poets are not singers, but preachers. 
 Too metaphysical, subtle and complicated in thought to sing 
 themselves clearly and strongly out into beautiful words." 204 
 
 Whittier expresses this thought, too, in his article on 
 Robert Duismore: 
 
 "Our poetry is cold and imitative ; it seems more the product 
 of overstrained intellects than the spontaneous outgushing of 
 hearts warm with love, and strongly sympathizing with human 
 nature as it naturally exists about us, with the joys and griefs of 
 the men and women that we meet daily. Unhappily the opinion 
 prevails that a poet must be also a philosopher, and hence it is 
 that much of our poetry is as indefinable in its mysticism as an 
 Indian Brahmin s Commentary on his sacred books, or German 
 metaphysics subjected to homoeopathic dilution. It assumes to be 
 prophetical, and its utterances are oracular. It tells of strange, 
 vague emotions and yearnings, painfully suggestive of spiritual 
 groanings which cannot be uttered . If it babbles o green fields 
 and the common sights and sounds of nature, it is only for the 
 
 204 The Poets of Transcendentalism, an Anthology, by Geo. W. Cooke, 1903. 
 Introduction. 
 
Whiitiers Relation to German Life and Thought 117 
 
 purpose of finding some vague analogy between them and its in 
 ternal experiences and longings. It leaves the warm and com 
 fortable fireside of actual knowledge and human comprehension, 
 and goes wailing and gibbering like a ghost about the impassible 
 doors of mystery." 205 
 
 In the letter of Ann E. Wendell, of Philadelphia, to Whit- 
 tier, which was mentioned under Ronge, she makes especial men 
 tion of the Transcendentalists and of Goethe : 
 
 Philadelphia, 12 mo. 24, 1846. 
 
 "Thou knowest, I suppose, that two ministers are here from 
 England, Benjamin Sebohm, a native of Germany, tho many 
 years a resident of England. We have had an interesting visit 
 from them. B. S. is a man intellectually as well as spiritually 
 gifted, he seems thoroughly conversant with the religious and 
 literary history of Germany a German work lying on the table 
 led him to remark that German authors should be read with cau 
 tion, particularly those which have of late years been so freely 
 circulated in this country and in England; bethought trans 
 cendentalism was unitarianism that our Dr. Charming drank 
 of it so deeply and wrote so beautifully that his influence had 
 done much to render it so fascinating here ; it was, he said, a beau 
 tiful porch leading to nothing & furthermore he said that these 
 German authors, wh. are now read with so much interest, have 
 many of them passed their day in Germany and the authors them 
 selves were ashamed of their own works ; & he mentioned the 
 names of several who have successfully controverted the trans 
 cendental writers; but they were all new to me and I doubt 
 whether they have ever been translated. He seems well acquainted 
 with Goethe and spoke of him as having done a great deal for the 
 literature of Germany, tho erroneous in many of his views, but as 
 he advanced in life he made advances towards something like 
 religious belief, wh., after having written a decidedly infidel work 
 at the age of 17 & living during the most extensive prevalence of 
 French infidelity manifested a desire to come at the truth. 
 I wish thee could have conversed with him about these 
 
 Prose Works, Vol. II, Riverside Edition, page 246. 
 
n8 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 things. Thou could have drawn forth so much more than I 
 could." 
 
 LUTHER. 
 
 Ein feste Burg ist wiser Gott. 
 
 This anti-slavery poem with the title of Luther s hymn ap 
 peared first in The New York Independent for June 13, 1861. 
 
 "Probably no other of Whittier s war hymns had such wide 
 and immediate effect upon the popular mind as the one set to the 
 music of Luther s hymn, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, begin 
 ning with the lines : 
 
 We wait beneath the furnace blast 
 The pangs of transformation. 
 
 It was read in the Cabinet of the President, in every household 
 in the North, and sung in the Union camps." 206 
 
 In a poem, 207 The Memory of Burns, our poet says of 
 Luther s hymns: 
 
 "How sweetly come the holy psalms 
 
 From saints and martyrs down, 
 The waving of triumphal palms 
 
 Above the thorny crown ! 
 The choral praise, the chanted prayers, 
 
 From harps by angels strung, 
 The hunted Cameron s mountain airs, 
 
 The hymns that Luther sung!" 
 
 The character of the reformer, Luther, appealed strongly to 
 the reformer, Whittier. Again and again Whittier refers to the 
 stout-hearted German. 
 
 In an article in The Essex Gazette, Haverhill, Mass., 
 August 1 6, 1834, The Defense of Abolitionists, by J. G. Whit 
 tier, he says: "What was it, when Luther dashed the foot of 
 Papal supremacy from the neck of Germany and shook the quiet 
 of all Christendom?" 
 
 In the stirring letter (quoted in a preceding paragraph) to 
 Edward Everett, Governor of Massachusetts, published in The 
 
 S. T. Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, pages 467-8. 
 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 199. 
 
Whittle r s Relation to German Life and Thought 119 
 
 Liberator, of Saturday, February 20, 1836, occurs this passage: 
 "Why in the stormy clays of the Reformation did Luther and his 
 followers expose the corruption and fraud of all-grasping Rome ? 
 It will irritate the masters! and why then do our orators, thyself 
 among the number, denounce the old world tyrants the Sultan 
 trampling on his dependencies the Austrian Despot and his 
 crafty Metternich chaining Italy above the grave of her ancient 
 liberties." 
 
 Whittier, while editing The Pennsylvania Freeman, 1838- 
 1840, refused to discuss in the columns of his paper other sub 
 jects than those, to which the paper was devoted, and used the 
 following example to illustrate his point : 
 
 "When Anthony of Bourbon, during the French King s 
 minority, held the regency of France, he informed the Danish 
 Ambassador that he hoped in a short time to procure a free pas 
 sage for the gospel throughout France. The Ambassador, a zeal 
 ous Lutheran, expressed his pleasure, but hoped that Luther s, 
 not Calvin s doctrines, might pass current. Luther and Calvin 
 answered the Regent, agree in forty points, and differ but in 
 one. Let those therefore that follow the tenets of those two unite 
 their strength against the common enemy, and at better leisure, in 
 a more convenient season, compound their own differences ." 208 
 
 In a letter- 09 to Ann E. Wendell, of Philadelphia, dated 
 Amesbury, Mass., eighth month, 1843, our P oe t remarks: 
 
 "I should be heartily glad to visit Philadelphia, to sit with 
 Cousin Ann, and discuss upon the great problems of human life 
 and destiny, and not upon these high abstractions alone, but upon 
 the. household things, the simple, the tender and the beautiful of 
 daily life, which lie scattered at the feet of man like flowers and 
 talk with thy mother about Luther, Melanchthon, and Pope and 
 Cardinal, and Fathers and Councils." 
 
 In The National Era, February n, 1847, is a letter dated 
 Amesbury, Mass., first of second month 1847, i n which Whit- 
 tier writes of an address he has heard in Boston, given by Wil 
 liam H. Channing: 
 
 208 Pickard, Life and Letters of John Grcenlcaf Whittier, page 230. 
 109 Fickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 279. 
 
I2O Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "I was struck by the speaker s eulogium upon a class of men 
 who have been heretofore everywhere spoken against the poor 
 Anabapists of the Reformation. He claimed for them the merit 
 of having seen clearly the truth which Luther and Calvin did not 
 always practically admit that Christianity was intended to bless 
 this world as well as the next; that it discountenanced alike the 
 spiritual despotism of the Pope, and the temporary tyranny of 
 Protestant nobles." 
 
 In an article in The National Era, Washington, May 18, 
 1848, Whittier quotes from one of Luther s speeches: 
 
 "The Fulfilment The extraordinary changes now going on 
 in the Old World, where, to use the figure of The London Times, 
 The States of Europe are so many ninepins, and Democracy 
 is bowling at them/ calls to mind the strong language which 
 Luther addressed to the Princes of his time : 
 
 Your tyranny and insolence can no longer be endured. God 
 will not endure it. The people cannot be hunted and driven like 
 game as in the world s infancy. The peope shall become enlight 
 ened, and princely scourges shall fall before the people. 
 
 "The fullness of time has come. Far more than Luther 
 dreamed of or desired, is taking place in his own beloved Father 
 land. The princely scourges are everywhere falling, everywhere 
 the people are sovereign. Awake, glorious Freedom! was the 
 response of Ulrich von Hutten to the stirring appeal of Luther. 
 By God s blessing we will assert our common liberties/ The 
 voice of that stout knight of the Reformation, who demanded 
 civil as well as religious freedom, sounding through the centuries, 
 stirs the heart of Europe. The thought which struggled dimly 
 in the minds of the German peasantry in the time of Luther, that 
 the freemen of Christ should not be slaves of men, that without 
 personal there could be no religious liberty, that Christianity is 
 designed to bless this life as well as that to come, is the predom 
 inant idea of the present time. The Pope is granting Constitu 
 tions. The Austrian Despot is supplicating the forebearance of 
 his subjects, and the divine right of Kings is an exploded idea, 
 consigned to the Limbo of Milton s Paradise of Fools/ 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 121 
 
 In his article on James Nayler 2W Whittier says : 
 
 "Let those who would harshly judge him, or ascribe his fall 
 to the peculiar doctrines of his sect, think of Luther, engaged in 
 personal combat with the Devil, or conversing with him on points 
 of theology in his bed-chamber; or of Bunyan at actual fisticuffs 
 with the adversary; or of Fleetwood and Vane and Harrison 
 millenium-mad, and making preparations for an earthly reign 
 of King Jesus. It was a reign of intense religious excitement. 
 Fanaticism had become epidemic." 
 
 In an article on William Leggett, 211 he speaks of Leggett s 
 reply to an attack on him by Tammany Hall for his abolition 
 sentiments : 
 
 "Its tone was calm, manly, self-relying; the language of one 
 who, having planted his feet hard down on the rock of principle, 
 stood there like Luther at Worms, because he could not other 
 
 wise . 
 
 Our poet quotes the famous words of Luther again in an 
 article, The Training: 212 
 
 ". . . Luther closing his speech at Worms with the sublime 
 emphasis of his Here stand I ; / cannot otherwise; God help me ; 
 Wm. Penn defending the rights of Englishmen from the bale- 
 dock of the fleet prison, . . . all these, and such as these, now 
 help me to form the loftier ideal of Christian heroism." 
 
 In the poem, To George B. Cheevcr, 213 Whittier says of 
 Luther : 
 
 "Mightier was Luther s Word 
 Than Sickingen s mailed arm or Hutten s sword !" 
 
 And in an article on Religious Beliefs : 
 
 "We agree with Luther that the Scriptures are not to be un 
 derstood, but by that very spirit by which they were written ." 214 
 
 210 Prose Works, Vol. II, Riverside Edition, page 74. 
 
 211 Prose Works, Vol. II, Riverside Edition, page 200. 
 213 Prose Works, Vol. I, Riverside Edition, page 348. 
 
 213 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 198. 
 
 214 Pickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 264. 
 
122 W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Another reference in Whittier s poems is in Amy Wenk- 
 zvorth: 215 
 
 "Let us keep sweet, 
 If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat 
 
 The bitter harvest of our own device 
 And half a century s moral cowardice, 
 
 As Nurnberg sang while Wittenberg defied, 
 And Kranach painted by his Luther s side;" 
 
 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR OF 1870. 
 
 In various letters, Whittier shows his attitude toward 
 Prussia as that of the deepest sympathy. The following unpub 
 lished letter 216 to Charles Sumner does not state the year, but 
 it is written before the war and shows Whittier s strong disap 
 proval of the usurpations of Napoleon III of France : 
 
 "Amesbury 2Oth, 8 mo. 
 "My dear Friend : 
 
 "I wish I felt able to take the cars to Boston and hear thy 
 speech this evening. I was glad to hear of the meeting, although 
 I greatly fear it is too late to be of any service to poor Hungary. 
 She will be crushed under the avalanche of Russian barbarism, 
 and the sympathies and congratulations of the friends of free 
 dom abroad will be to her like delicacies upon a mouth shut up 
 or as meats set upon a grave . 
 
 "I wish, either in resolutions or speeches, the disgraceful 
 conduct of that miserable disciple of Calhoun democracy and 
 Papal infallibility, R. Walsh, could be noticed as it deserves. 
 Through him our government commits itself in favor of the 
 Kings and Princes of Europe in their barbarous measures for 
 suppressing the growth of free principles. We are made parties 
 to the usurpations of Bonaparte the Less, the bombardment of 
 Rome the bloody rule of Naples the atrocious barbarities of 
 Austria and Russia in Hungary. The miserable fellow would 
 be nothing by himself, but as an official of our government, he 
 can do a good deal to disgrace us. 
 
 r5 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 80. 
 118 Letter in possession of the Harvard Library. 
 
Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 123 
 
 "What will become of the Roman and Prussian exiles, 
 driven from Malta and Switzerland? Cannot our government, 
 in case they wish to emigrate to this country, secure their safe 
 passage to parts for that purpose? 
 
 "Affectionately thy friend, 
 
 "J. G. WHITTIER." 
 
 In a letter 217 to Lydia Maria Child, August 3, 1870, Whit- 
 tier says: 
 
 "My deepest sympathies are with Prussia in the impending 
 contest. What a monster Napoleon is! Was he born without 
 moral sense? Has he no conscience, no remorse? There is 
 something weird and dreadful about him. The prayers of all 
 the priests of Rome are with him ; but the cry of innocent blood, 
 rising to heaven, will drown them. I think he is rushing upon 
 his fate." 
 
 In an article on The Unity of Italy 218 read at the great meet 
 ing held in New York in January, 1871, in celebration of the free 
 dom of Rome and complete unity of Italy, Whittier expressed 
 again the thought that Napoleon had brought his fate upon him 
 self: 
 
 "My sympathies are with Julves Favre and Leon Gambetta 
 in their efforts to establish and sustain a republic in France, but 
 I confess that the investment of Paris by King William seems to 
 me the logical sequence of the bombardment of Rome by Ouclinot. 
 And is it not a significant fact that the terrible chassepot, which 
 made its first bloody experiment upon the half -armed Italian 
 patriots without the walls of Rome, has failed in the hands of 
 French republicans against the inferior needle-gun of Prussia?" 
 
 In another unpublished letter 219 to Charles Sutnner, dated 
 Amesbury roth, 9 mo. 1870, Whittier says: 
 "Dear Sumner : 
 
 "I was glad to see thy handwriting on the margin of a paper 
 sent me a day or two ago. The incident to which it refers is a 
 
 Life of John Greenleaf Whittier, by F. H. Underwood, 1891, page 280. 
 Prose Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Vol. Ill, page 230. 
 Letter in Harvard Library. 
 
124 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 striking one. Can nothing be done by our government to bring 
 about peace between Prussia and France? Now that Napoleon 
 is dethroned, I hope the Prussians will be as magnanimous as 
 they have proved themselves brave. My sympathies have been 
 with them up to this time." 
 
 In the poem on the French statesman, Thiers 22 Whittier 
 pays a high tribute to his successful efforts in bringing about 
 peace at the conclusion of the war : 
 
 "He, when around the walls of Paris rung 
 The Prussian bugle like the blast of doom, 
 
 And every ill which follows unblest war 
 Maddened all France from Finistere to Var, 
 
 The weight of fourscore from his shoulders flung, 
 And guided Freedom in the path he saw 
 
 Lead out of Chaos into light and law, etc." 
 
 Whittier refers to the statesman who was instrumental in 
 founding the Liberal Imperial Party, and who most strongly sup 
 ported Bismarck in his anti-Papal policy Prince Hohenlohe in 
 his article on Magicians and Witch Folk: 221 
 
 "He found the old man sitting in his plain parlor in the 
 simplest garb of his sect, grave, thoughtful, venerable, a drab- 
 coated Prince Hohenlohe." 
 
 CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Whittier edited, with the aid of Lucy Larcom, two books 
 of selections for children; the first, Child Life, a collection of 
 poems by various authors, was published in 1871 ; and the second, 
 a companion volume, Child Life in Prose, was published in 1873. 
 
 Through Mrs. James Fields we know two of the books they 
 used in collecting this material : 222 
 
 "He became interested one morning in a plan proposed to 
 him for making a collection of poems for young people, one 
 which he finally completed with the aid of Lucy Larcom. 
 
 220 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 210. 
 
 221 Prose Works, Vol. T, page 405. 
 
 222 Mrs. J. T. Fields in Whittier, Notes on His Life and Friendships, page 
 52. New York, 1893. 
 
Whittled s Relation to German Life and Thought 125 
 
 "We got down from the shelf Longfellow s Poets and Poetry 
 of Europe and looked it over together. 
 
 "Annie of Thar aw was a great favorite of his." 
 
 In an unpublished letter 223 to Mrs. Fields, dated Boston 18, 
 4 mo. 1871, Whittier says: 
 
 "I wanted to see thee, and consult thee about the little col 
 lection of children s poems. We found some nice pieces in 
 Poets and Poetry of Europe, 2 -* and some more in the Poets 
 Hours, which I herewith return with many thanks. We have 
 got together a sufficient amount of material ; my only fear is, that 
 there are some better things which have escaped our notice." 
 
 In the introduction to the book of poems, Child Life, the 
 author says : 225 
 
 "The editor has availed himself of selections from the folk 
 songs and ballads of Continental Europe." 226 
 
 And again in speaking of the sort of stories given to chil 
 dren he remarks : 
 
 "In HaufFs Fortunes of Fairylore 227 the heroine complains, 
 to her mother fancy, that the world has grown uncomfortably 
 wise, and that the very children who used to love her so dearly 
 have become too knowing for their tender age, and, no longer 
 capable of wonder, laugh at her stories and turn their backs on 
 her. Poor Fairylore is doubtless justified in her complaint the 
 schoolmaster and newspaper are busy with their disenchant- 
 ments." 
 
 The reference is here to Wilhelm HaufFs Marchen als 
 Almanack, Einleitung 22 * 
 
 The selections in the book taken from the German are : 
 
 ( i ) Sleep, Baby, Sleep. From the German, page 18. 
 A translation of the well-known Volkslied: 
 
 223 Letter in possession of Mrs. J. T. Fields, Boston. 
 
 224 Poets and Poetry of Europe, edited by H. W. Longfellow. 
 
 225 Cambridge Edition of Child Life, published by Houghton, Mifflin & 
 Company. 
 
 220 Introduction, page vii. 
 
 227 Introduction, page viii. 
 
 228 See Hauffs Werke herausgegeben von Dr. C. Flaischlen. Bd. TT, S. 4. 
 
126 Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Schlaf, Kindlein, Schlaf. 
 
 Der Vater hi tt t die Schaf, u. s. w. 
 
 (2) Winter. From the German, page 98, is a translation of 
 
 Ein Lied, hintcrin Ofcn LH singen, by Matthias 
 Claudius, which begins : "Der Winter ist ein 
 rechter Mann." 229 
 
 (3) Greediness Punished. From the German of Riickert, 
 
 page 130, is a translation of Friedrich Riickert s 
 poem Bestrafte Ungeniigsamkeit. 23 " 
 
 (4) The Toy of the Giant s Child. From the German of 
 
 Chamisso, page 131. 
 
 This is the well-known poem by Adelbert von Chamisso, 
 Das Riesenspieheug. 231 
 
 (5) Charley, the Story Teller. From the German, page 204. 
 
 (6) Sunday Morning. From the German of Hebel, page 
 
 210. 
 
 This is the poem Sonntagsfriihe, 232 by Johann Peter 
 Hebel, and is the same translation as that given by 
 Longfellow in his Poets and Poetry of Europe. 
 
 (7) Falling to Sleep. From the German, page 261. 
 
 This is doubtless a paraphrase of the poem Gute 
 Nacht, 233 by Emanuel Geibel. 
 
 (8) Among Green Pleasant Meadows. From the German 
 
 of Herder, page 109. 
 
 This translation is in Longfellow s Poets and Poetry of 
 Europe under the title of A Legendary Ballad, and 
 is taken from Herder s poem, Die Geschivister. 234 
 
 In the preface to Child Life in Prose, Whittier quotes two 
 passages from Jean Paul Richter : 
 
 "Not irreverently has Jean Paul said: I love God and little 
 children. Ye stand nearest to Him, ye little ones ." 
 
 229 Matthias Claudius Werke, Hamburg, 1819. Bd. II, S. 87. 
 
 230 See Ruckerts Poetische Werke, Frankfurt am M., 1882. Bd. II, S. 58. 
 281 See Kluges Auswahl deutscher Gedichte, Altenburg, 1896, S. 35. 
 
 232 See Kluges Auszvahl deutscher Gedichte, S. 195. 
 aas See Kluges Ausiwhl deutscher Gedichte, S. 96. 
 
 234 See Herders S dmtntllche Werke, herausgegeben von B. Suphan, Berlin, 
 1884. Bd. XXVIII, page 220. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 127 
 
 And again : 
 
 1 can bear , said Richter, to look upon a melancholy man, 
 but I cannot look upon a melancholy child. Fancy a butterfly 
 crawling like a caterpillar, with his four wings pulled off! " 235 
 
 Of Goethe s "child figure", Mignon, in Wilhelm Meister, 
 Whittier says in this preface : 
 
 "How sweetly, amidst the questionable personages who give 
 small occasion of respect for manhood or womanhood as they 
 waltz and wander through the story of Wilhelm Meister, rises 
 the child figure of Mignon!" 236 
 
 From German authors the book contains the following 
 selections : 
 
 (1) Amrie and the Geese Berthold Auerbach, page 131. 
 This is an anecdote taken from Auerbach s Barfiissele. 
 
 (2) Star Dollars Grimm s Household Tales, page 192, 
 
 is the well-known Marchen, Die Sternthaler. 
 
 (3) The Story Without an End German of Carove, page 
 
 229. This is Das Marchen ohne Ende, by F. W. 
 Carove. 
 
 (4) Memories of Child Life. By Jean Paul Richter (one 
 
 of the great authors of Germany), page 271. 
 is taken from a translation of Aus Jean Pauls 
 Leben, written by himself. 
 
 MAX MULLER. 
 The Brewing of Soma. 
 
 This poem, written in 1872, was suggested to Whittier by a 
 translation of the eminent German scholar and orientalist, Pro 
 fessor Friedrich Max Muller. Whittier heads his poem with 
 a quotation 237 from Professor Miiller s translation : 
 
 235 Jean Paul Richters Werke, Berlin, Hempel, Th. 54-60, Levana Kap. 
 II, S. 58. 
 
 338 Preface, page 6. 
 
 287 Headnote to Whittier s poem, The Brewing of Soma. Cambridge 
 Edition of Poems, page 449. 
 
128 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "These libations mixed with milk have been prepared for 
 Indra: offer Soma to the drinker of Soma." Vashista, translated 
 by Max Miiller. 
 
 Whittier speaks again of Miiller in an article on Lydia 
 Maria Child: 238 
 
 "If in her desire to do justice to the religions of Budha and 
 Mohammed, in which she has been followed by Maurice, Max 
 Miiller, and Dean Stanley, she seems at times to dwell upon the 
 best and overlook the darker features of these systems, her con 
 cluding reflections should vindicate her from the charge of un 
 dervaluing the Christian faith, or of lack of reverent apprecia 
 tion of its founder." 
 
 FREILIGRATH. 
 
 In 1877, the English and American residents of Stuttgart 
 proposed to celebrate the first anniversary of the death of the 
 German poet Freiligrath. Robert S. Rantoul, of Salem, Mass., 
 who was at that time staying at Stuttgart, wrote to Whittier 
 inviting him to contribute verses for the occasion; Longfellow 
 was asked to do the same, but the invitations reached them too 
 late to comply to the request. Both poets, however, sent letters 
 of appreciation and money for the monument, which was to be 
 erected in Stuttgart in honor of the dead poet. Whittier s letter 239 
 is written from Oak Knoll, Danvers, Mass. : 
 
 "3rd mo., 5, 1877. 
 My dear Friend: 
 
 I have been absent from Amesbury for some time and thy 
 letter has just reached me, too late I fear for the occasion to 
 which I refer. I would gladly, were I able, send a word for the 
 anniversary ; as it is, I beg the privilege of contributing my mite 
 for the proposed monument to the memory of the poet- 
 patriot Freiligrath. I need scarcely say that I have been in hearty 
 sympathy with him, as the foremost liberal poet of his time. In 
 
 298 Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. II, page 293. 
 
 * Personal Reminiscences of the Poet Whittier, by R. S. Rantoul. Pub. 
 of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass., 1901. Vol. 37, page 145. The original of 
 this letter is in the Essex Institute. 
 
Whittle? s Relation to German Life and Thought 129 
 
 the dark days of our anti-slavery struggle, his brave words for 
 universal freedom have cheered and strengthened me. 
 
 Pay for me twenty dollars ($20) for the monument, and 
 advise me where and with whom I can deposit the sum at Salem. 
 
 The bells are ringing in the new Republican President 
 Rutherford Hayes, in whose cabinet the German born Carl Schurz 
 has a place. His inaugural is a brief but noble document, and we 
 hope excellent things from him. 
 
 Always thy friend, 
 
 JOHN G. WHITTIER." 
 
 A letter 240 of thanks to the Committee for the Memorial 
 reads as follows : 
 
 "Stuttgart und Cannstatt, 4. November 1877. 
 
 Verehrlichtem Comite behufs der Freiligrath Feier fur eng- 
 lischsprechende Bewohner von Stuttgart und Umgebung. 
 
 Hochgeehrte Herren! 
 
 Indem wir im Namen des Comites fur Errichtung eines 
 Denkmals iiber dem Grabe Ferdinand Freiligraths fur den 
 uns giitigst ubermachten Erlos aus der von Ihnen veranstalteten 
 Freiligrath-Feier unseren verbindlichsten Dank aussprechen, kon- 
 nen wir uns nicht versagen, Ihnen zugleich im Auftrage unseres 
 Comites wie im Namen der von dem Comite vertretenen Verehrer 
 des Dichters unsere dankbare Anerkennung fur die schonen Be- 
 muhungen darzubringen, mit denen Sie, hochgeehrte Herren, 
 unsere Absichten unterstiitzt und dem Andenken eines zweien 
 Nationen theueren und edlen Dichtergeistes eine erhebende und 
 unseren Herzen doppelt wohlthuende Hulcligung dargebracht ha- 
 ben. 
 
 Sie haben gleichzeitig die Giite geliabt uns wertvolle Beitrage 
 von den beiden amerikanischen Dichtern Longfellow und Whit- 
 tier zu tibermachen. Indem wir Ihnen auch hiefiir danken, er- 
 lauben wir uns die ergebenste Bitte, dass Sie, hochgeehrte Her 
 ren, giitigst den beiden edlen Gebern unseren tiefstgefiihlten Dank 
 und die Versicherung kundgeben wollten, dass eine Gabe von so 
 
 Original manuscript in Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. 
 
130 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 ruhmvollem und gefeiertem Ursprung in unseren Herzen einen 
 vollen Wiederhall gefunden und uns in unseren Bestrebungen we- 
 sentlich gekraftigt und ermutigt hat. Wir erlauben uns die Mit- 
 theilung anzufiigen, dass voraussichtlich die Herstellung des 
 Denkmals unverweilt in Angriff genommen werden wird. Geneh- 
 migen Sie den Ausdruck unserer ausgezeichnetsten Hochachtung, 
 womit wir die Ehre haben zu zeichnen im Namen des Freiligrath- 
 Comites in Stuttgart und Canstatt. 
 
 PROF. JULIUS KLAIBER, Vorsitzender; 
 
 CARL HARTENSTEIN, Kassier." 
 
 "Das Freiligrath-Comite in Canstatt und Stuttgart be- 
 scheinigt hierdurch dem verehrlichjen Comite behufs der Frei- 
 ligrath-Feier fiir englischsprechende Bewohner von Stuttgart und 
 Umgebung den Beitrag von M. 183.36 und durch dasselbe Comite 
 als Beitrage von den amerikanischen Dichtern, Longfellow und 
 Whittier, M. 285.94, zusammen M. 469.30, mit Worten: vierhun- 
 dert neunundsechzig Mark dreissig Pfennig baar empfangen zu 
 
 haben. 
 
 Cannstatt, 5. November 1877. 
 
 Der Kassier des Freiligrath-Comites, 
 CARL HARTENSTEIN." 
 
 Mr. Rantoul, in a speech, 241 on the death of the translator 
 Charles F. Brooks, before the Essex Institute, June, 1883, speaks 
 of Whittier s admiration for Freiligrath and calls the latter the 
 Whittier of the Teuton race. 
 
 Eduard Engel says of him : "Wollen wir fiir Whittier unter 
 europaischen Dichtern seinesgleichen suchen, so wiissten wir nur 
 Victor Hugo oder Freiligrath zu nennen." 241a 
 
 THE Two ELIZABETHS. 
 This poem was published first in The Atlantic Monthly, July, 
 
 1885. 
 
 Whittier composed the poem 242 for the occasion of the 
 unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry in the fifth month, 1885, 
 
 241 Bulletin of Essex Institute, Vol. XV, pages 26-28. 
 * n& Gesch. der Lit. Nord-Amerikas, von E. Engel, Leipzig, S. 20-24. 
 348 Proceedings at the unveiling of a bust of Elizabeth Fry, at the Friends 
 School, Providence, R. I., Ninth Month 29, 1885. Note to page 8. 
 
W hit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 131 
 
 at the Friends School, Providence, R. L, expecting that it would 
 be read then and appear in The Atlantic Monthly in the seventh 
 month. The bust was unexpectedly retained several months at 
 the Royal Academy, in London, and the publication of the poem 
 could not be prevented. 
 
 Augustine Jones, a friend of the poet, writes: "The 
 sympathy of Whittier with the Broad Church of Humanity, 
 is disclosed in few, if any, of his writings, more vividly than 
 in this discriminative poem. One of the Elizabeths is a Catholic 
 philanthropist, reared at the beginning of the thirteenth century, 
 in the midst of the superstitions of her church, with more legends 
 connected with her career than encircle the annals of any other 
 person since her time. 
 
 "The other Elizabeth, a philanthropist, also, was fostered six 
 hundred years later in the Society of Friends, which has no 
 ritual, no pomp, or canonization of saints; and is bereft of all 
 ecclesiastical magnificance, as completely as the religion an 
 nounced at Jacob s well. The religious development of these 
 women was as diverse and irreconcilable as can well be conceived ; 
 yet these are the great twin sisters divinely impelled to the same 
 service of love. Whittier had given the strength of his life to 
 downtrodden humanity. Who better than he could discern the 
 unanimity of purpose and overmastering love which dominated 
 the Elizabeths? Both the contrast and unity between the two 
 characters makes for each of them a brilliant setting in the 
 poem." 243 
 
 Whittier divides his poem 244 into two parts, and heads the 
 first with the year 1207 (the birth of St. Elizabeth), and tells in 
 the poem of her saintly life and work; then under the year 1780, 
 (the birth of Elizabeth Fry- 4r> ) he gives an account of her work. 
 
 The poet s tribute to St. Elizabeth begins : 
 
 248 The Two Elisabeths, by Augustine Jones. Reprinted from the American 
 Friend of Eleventh Month 8, 1900. Page 7. 
 
 244 Whittier s Poems, Cambridge Edition, page 134. 
 
 245 Elizabeth Fry, 1780-1845, was born at Earlham, England, and was a 
 member of the Society of Friends. She was early impressed with the gospel 
 of truth. At twenty-nine she followed the inward voice which called her to 
 
132 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 A. D. 1207. 
 
 "Amidst Thuringia s wooded hills she dwelt, 
 
 A high-born princess, servant of the poor. 
 Sweetening with gracious words the food she dealt 
 To starving throngs at Wartburg s blazoned door." 
 
 Of the English St. Elizabeth Whittier says: 
 A. D. 1780. 
 
 "Slow ages passed: and lo! another came, 
 
 An English matron, in whose simple faith 
 Nor priestly rule nor ritual had claim, 
 A plain, uncanonized Elizabeth." 
 
 The last verse pays a tribute to both lives: 
 
 "United now, the Briton and the Hun, 
 
 Each, in her own time, faithful unto death, 
 Live sister souls ! in name and spirit one, 
 Thuringia s saint and our Elizabeth!" 
 
 THE BROWN DWARF OF RUEGEN. 
 
 In a note 246 to the poem ; Whittier says : "The ballad appeared 
 first in St. Nicholas, 247 whose young readers were advised, while 
 smiling at the absurd superstition, to remember that bad com 
 panionship and evil habits, desires, and passions are more to be 
 dreaded now than the Elves and Trolls who frightened the chil 
 dren of the past ages." 
 
 The poet says also: "The hint of this ballad is found in 
 Arnclt s Marchen, Berlin, i8i6."~ 48 
 
 the ministry and experienced much peace accordingly. She was interested in 
 the poor and needy around her and ministered to their spiritual and bodily 
 wants. She is best known for her noble work in the prisons of England. The 
 condition in the English prisons at that time was appalling. She travelled 
 through the country from place to place, finding out conditions in the prisons, 
 and conferring with the authorities, and interesting the women to form 
 associations to carry out the needed reforms. Her success was due mainly 
 to her own personal influence and exertions. 
 
 246 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 138. 
 
 247 The poem appeared in the January number of St. Nicholas, 1888, with 
 illustrations by E. H. Blashfield. 
 
 ""Arndts Marchen, Th. I. was published by Georg Reimer, Berlin, 1818, 
 Th. II. 1843. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 133 
 
 Among Whittier s books in Amesbury, Mass., is a copy of 
 The Fairy Mythology of Various Countries, by Thomas Keightly, 
 London, 1850, containing the story, The Isle of Rug en ^ taken 
 from Arndt s Mdrchen. As Whittier could not read Arndt in the 
 original, it is more than likely that the chapter on John Dietrich, 
 in this book, was his source. He has, however, varied it some 
 what from the story in Keightly, which follows closely that given 
 by Arndt in his Marchen called Die Neun Berge bei Rambin. 
 
 In Whittier s poem, Elsbeth wanders out among the Nine 
 Hills and is stolen by the Trolls. Five years she is mourned in 
 vain, when her playmate, John Dietrich, the Amtmann s son, re 
 solves to find her. He watches among the Hills until he sees the 
 little people dancing in the moonlight : 
 
 "And when their gay-robed leader tossed up his cap of red, 
 Young Dietrich caught it as it fell, and thrust it on his head. 
 
 "The troll came crouching at his feet and wept for lack of it. 
 Oh give me back my magic cap, for your great head unfit! 
 
 " Nay , Dietrich said, the Dwarf who throws his charmed cap 
 
 away, 
 Must serve its finder at his will, and for his folly pay. 
 
 " You stole my pretty Lisbeth, and hid her in the earth; 
 
 And you shall ope the door of glass and let me lead her forth ." 
 
 The dwarf is forced to obey and leads Dietrich to their 
 "elfin underland", where he finds Lisbeth very pale and sorrow 
 ful, serving the dwarfs at table, and longing for the green fields 
 of Riigen. Dietrich s heart is touched at the sight of her pale face 
 and he says : 
 
 ..." For five long years this tender Christian maid 
 
 Has served you in your evil world, and well must she be paid! 
 
 " Haste ! hither bring me precious gems, the richest in your 
 
 store ; 
 
 Then when we pass the gate of glass, you ll take your cap once 
 more. 
 
 Fairy Mythology, by Thomas Keightly, pages 174-205. 
 
134 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "No choice was left the baffled Troll, and, murmuring, he obeyed, 
 And filled the pockets of the youth and apron of the maid. 
 
 "They left the dreadful underland and passed the gate of glass, 
 They felt the sunshine s warm caress, they trod the soft, green 
 grass. 
 
 "And when, beneath, they saw the Dwarf stretch up to them his 
 
 brown 
 And crooked claw-like fingers, they tossed this red cap down." 
 
 In the original Marchen, Dietrich is told by a cowherd the 
 story of the brown dwarfs and of their dance-night on St. John s 
 day. He is curious and goes out on the Nine Hills to watch for 
 the tiny dancers, but falls asleep and when twelve o clock strikes, 
 the little people come out, and in their glee fling their brown caps 
 in the air. John, who is wakened by their merriment, gets hold 
 of one of the caps and keeps it. He goes with the Trolls under 
 ground and is amused by all he sees. He finds there his old 
 playmate, Elsbeth, who had come into their power by falling 
 asleep on the hills, and who is obliged to serve the dwarfs fifty 
 years, as do all the children stolen from the upper world. John 
 is attracted to the little maid and they spend many happy moments 
 together, until he becomes eighteen and she sixteen. John has 
 enjoyed his life underground, but Elsbeth has always thought 
 sorrowfully of the life outside the hills. She becomes more and 
 more melancholy in the thought that she must serve the dwarfs 
 so long. John cannot see his friend so sad, so he begs the Trolls 
 to let them go, but all in vain. Finally, after many unsuccessful 
 attempts, he devises a means of escape. He finds a toad and puts 
 it into a basket as if it were a precious jewel and brings it before 
 the little people, who are curious to see the contents; but when 
 he opens it, and they see the toad, they fall to the ground in horror. 
 
 John tells them he will take the creature out of their sight, if 
 they bring him three wagonloads of gold and jewels. This they 
 do, and Dietrich then buries the toad and makes his escape with 
 Elsbeth, before the Trolls have time to recover from their fright. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 135 
 
 LITERARY REFERENCES TO GERMAN AUTHORS AND WORKS. 
 
 Here are included references, in Whittier s works or letters, 
 to German subjects which have not been discussed in the previous 
 chapters. These references show in many cases his opinions of 
 the works or authors in question, at other times they are merely 
 references: 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide. 
 
 "How pleasant to think of the Arab and his horse, whose 
 friendship has been celebrated in song and romance. Of Vogel- 
 wied, the Minnesinger, and his bequest to the birds." 250 
 
 Hans Sachs. 
 
 Whittier, who as a young man, worked for a time at the 
 shoe-making trade, was naturally interested in Hans Sachs, the 
 shoemaker-poet of Niirnberg. He says of him in The Shoe 
 maker: 2 ^ 
 
 "Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet, 
 In strong and hearty German." 
 
 Melancthon. 
 
 "But abhoring, as we must, persecution under whatever pre 
 text it is employed, we are not, therefore, to conclude that all 
 persecutors were bad and unfeeling men. ... It would not 
 be very difficult for us to imagine a tender-hearted Inquisitor of 
 this stamp, stifling his weak compassion for the shrieking wretch 
 under bodily torment by his strong pity for souls in danger of 
 perdition from the sufferer s heresy. We all know with what 
 satisfaction the gentle-spirited Melancthon heard of the burning 
 of Servetus, and with what zeal he defended it." 252 
 
 Friedrich von Logan. 
 
 An article by Whittier on The Scottish Reformers -** is in 
 troduced by a translation from Logau: 
 
 250 Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. Ill, page 243. Article on Our 
 Dumb Relations. 
 
 251 Whittier s Poems, Cambridge Edition, page 357. 
 
 252 Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. II, page 128. Article on John 
 Roberts. 
 
 - ^ Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. II, page 417. 
 
136 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small ; 
 Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds 
 he all." 254 
 
 Wieland. 
 
 Whittier does not mention the poet, Wieland, but he knew 
 and criticised at length Charles Brockden Brown s novel Wie 
 land^ which bears, perhaps not merely by chance, the name 
 of the German poet. He mentions the book also in his Review 256 
 of Retribution, by Mrs. Southworth : "But as a whole we do not 
 hesitate to say that it is worthy of a place with Brockden Brown s 
 Wieland, etc." 
 
 Lavater. 
 
 Whittier expresses himself vigorously against the philosophy 
 of the physiognomist, Lavater, and his school: 
 
 "I hate your professed physiognomist the man who reads 
 at a glance the character of his neighbor decyphering with ease 
 the mystic meaning of the human features those heroglyphics 
 of the Almighty. I abhor the idea of a man s carrying his auto 
 biography in his visage the melancholy history of a love adven 
 ture in the droop of an eye-lid, or the prominence of a cheek bone, 
 or a tale of disappointment in the wrinkles of a forehead. I con 
 demn in toto the systems of Lavater, Gall, and Spurzheim. 257 
 Tis an unmanly method of coming at one s private history. The 
 beautiful and lordly those who carry an eternal letter of recom 
 mendation in their countenance may, perhaps, demur to my 
 opinions. Let them. Phrenology may have been a blessing to 
 them; it has been the devil and all to me. 
 
 * 4 Logau s verses are : 
 
 "Gottes Miihlen mahlen langsam, 
 
 Mahlen aber trefflich klein, 
 Ob aus Langmut er sich saumet, 
 
 Bring! mit Scharf er alles ein." 
 
 265 Whittle/ s Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. III. Article on Fanat 
 icism, pages 392-395- 
 
 256 National Era, September 20, 1849. 
 
 257 In the Harerhill Iris, November 24, 1832, edited by Whittier, is the 
 notice of the death of Dr. Gaspard F. Spurzheim, the distinguished phrenolo 
 gist and philosophical lecturer, "who died amongst us". "A eulogy was pro 
 nounced by Professor Pollen of the Theological Institution of Harvard." 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 137 
 
 "As Balak said of old unto Balaam, so I say unto all, who, 
 like myself have been martyrs to the sciences of bumps, organs, 
 and facial angles. . . . Physiognomy and Phrenology 
 Come, help me to curse them/ Nay, smile not at my vehemence, 
 fair reader ; those least of all can appreciate my feelings. As thou 
 bendest over my page, with thine eye shedding a finer light across 
 it than ever brightened the illuminated scroll of a monkish 
 legend with thy dark tresses ever and anon lightly sweeping 
 its margin, and half-shadowing the delicate fingers which enclose 
 it, the veriest mocker at humanity would bless thee, and the 
 austere St. Francis, at the first glimpse of thee, would have for 
 saken his bride of snow. But I, marked and set apart from my 
 fellows, the personification of ugliness, in whose countenance 
 every modern Lavater discovers all that is vile and disagreeable 
 and odious ; shunned by the lovelier and gentler sex, and suspected 
 and laughed at by my own ; in the name of all that is sensitive, 
 why should I not murmur at the practice of an art which has 
 undone me, at the illustration of a silence which has shut the door 
 of human sympathy upon me!" 258 
 
 THE TRAVELS OF MUNCHAUSEN. 
 A New Year s Address to the Patrons of The Essex Gazette. 260 
 
 "And bridges, now in gloomy grandeur straddle 
 The chainless tide, that rolls itself below ; 
 
 But, like a horse, vex d with an extra saddle, 
 Old Merrimack threatens with an overthrow, 
 
 That famous one, which beats Munchausen s 261 hollow, 
 Since but the sight oft costs us half a dollar." 
 
 In a letter 262 to his publisher Fields, Whittier says: "What 
 ever poetical fancies garnered up in more genial weather may be 
 
 **New England Magazine, August, 1832. Article, The Nervous Man, by 
 John Greenleaf Whittier, page 97. 
 
 * m Essex Gazette, Haverhill, Mass., January 5, 1825. 
 
 261 Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und Lande des Freyherrn von Miinch- 
 hausen was published in England, in English, by the German, Professor 
 Rudolph Erich Raspe, 1786, and was translated by Burger, the following year, 
 into German. 
 
 262 Pickard s Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, page 378. 
 
138 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 left within me, they are frozen up before reaching my finger tips, 
 like the tunes in Munchausen s horn, and I cannot, like the 
 veracious hunter, get up a fire sufficient to thaw them out." 
 
 GERMAN FABLE. 
 
 Our poet was familiar with other stories of fable and folk 
 lore : . 
 
 A Legend of the Lake. 
 
 "And the cares you left behind you 
 Come hunting along your track, 
 As Blue-Cap in German fable 
 
 Rode on the traveller s pack," 263 
 
 BUERGER. 
 
 Whittier refers to Burger s Lenore in his Magicians and 
 Witch Folk. "Of that ride Burger might have written a counter 
 part to his ballad : 
 
 "Tramp, tramp, along the shore they ride, 
 Splash, splash, along the sea." 264 
 
 Lessing. 
 
 In 1853, Whittier wrote a letter 265 to his publisher Fields 
 introducing Lucy Larcom s work to his notice: "I enclose what 
 I regard as a very unique and beautiful little book in MS. I don t 
 wish thee to take my opinion, but the first leisure hour thee has, 
 read it, and I am sure thee will decide it is exactly the thing for 
 publication. . . . The little prose poems are unlike anything 
 in our literature, and remind me of the German writer, Lessing." 
 
 Lessing, Kruniniacher, Herder. 
 
 Review, 266 by Whittier, of Similitudes from the Ocean and 
 Prairie ( Boston : Jewett & Co. ) : 
 
 263 Cambridge Edition of Poetical Works, page 513. 
 
 964 Vol. i, Prose Works, Riverside Edition, page 411. This is from Walter 
 Scott s translation. Scott has "land" instead of "shore". 
 
 260 Whittier, Notes on His Life and Friendships, by Mrs. J. T. Fields. 
 366 National Era, December 22, 1853. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 139 
 
 "Like Kriemacher, 267 Lessing, and Herder and often with 
 equal success the writer has adopted the method of imparting 
 the lessons of truth and wisdom, which forms one of the most 
 attractive features of Mohammedan literature, and which lends 
 such picturesque beauty to the old Hebrew poetry and the para 
 bles of the Divine Teacher." 
 
 Nicolai. 
 
 In the New England Magazine, April 18, 1831, the editor 
 writes, at the end of a story, published in its pages, The Spectre 
 Smitten: 
 
 "The Spectre which occasioned the fright which produced 
 delirium, may be considered as nothing more than the phantom 
 of an over-excited imagination, like those which haunted Nico 
 lai which puzzled the pious head of Wesley; and shook the 
 philosophic nerves of Swedenborg." 
 
 In the New England Review, March 21, 1831, a letter from 
 the editor to the friend in his editorial chair, referring to a num 
 ber of the Hartford Times, says : 
 
 "How it strayed into our quiet community, I know not, but 
 it looked among its more amiable companions like the Demon of 
 Nicolai amidst the gay assemblies of the Prussian capital." 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 That Whittier was familiar with Coleridge s translation of 
 Schiller s Wallenstein, we know from an article on Labor the 
 French Revolution, in The National Era, 268 in which he says : 
 
 "We accord entirely with the philosophy of reform indicated 
 in these lines of Coleridge s Wallenstein: 
 
 "Straight forward goes 
 
 The lightnings path, and straight the fearful path 
 Of the cannon ball. Direct it flies, and rapid, 
 Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. 
 My son, the road the human being travels 
 That on which blessing comes and goes doth follow 
 The river s course, the valley s playful windings 
 
 17 Misspelling for Krummacher. 
 
 18 National Era, April 27, 1848. 
 
140 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Curves round the corn fields and the hill of vines, 
 
 Honoring the holy bounds of property ! 
 
 And thus secure, though late, leads to its end." 
 
 In the Miscellany column of The Essex Gazette, 2 of which 
 Whittier was editor, appeared the translation, Duke Alvas Break 
 fast at the Castle of Rudolstadt, translated from the papers of 
 Schiller for The Portsmouth Journal. 
 
 Alexander von Humboldt. 
 
 In an article on The Abolitionists, 210 Whittier refers the 
 reader, among other books, to Humbolclt s Travels, to confirm 
 his statement that, "Wherever, whether in Europe, the East and 
 the West Indies, South America, or in our own country, a fair 
 experiment has been made of the comparative expense of free 
 and slave labour, the result has uniformly been favorable to the 
 former". 
 
 Jean Paul Richter, Krummacher. 
 
 In an article on Nathaniel Peabody Rogers 211 he writes : 
 
 "The admirers of Jean Paul Richter might find much of the 
 charm and variety of the Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces in 
 this newspaper collection." 
 
 In The Middlesex Standard 212 the editor prints a short 
 narrative called The Wasted Flower, by Rotha, and remarks : 
 
 "The following from The Lowell Offering for last month is 
 worthy of Krummacher or Jean Paul." 
 
 In the chapter on "The Lighting Up", in The Stranger in 
 Lowell, 21 * Whittier says : 
 
 "The Lowell Offering, which has been for the last four 
 years published monthly in this city, consisting entirely of articles 
 
 w Essex Gazette, November 15, 1836. 
 
 919 Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. Ill, page 74. 
 
 271 Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. II, page 238. 
 
 272 October 31, 1844. 
 
 ""Published by Waiter, Peirce & Company, 1845, pages 115-123. These 
 articles first appeared in the Essex Transcript. In Whittier s collected works, 
 Riverside Edition, Vol. I, page 379, The Lighting Up, the reference to Jean 
 Paul is omitted. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 141 
 
 written by females employed in the mills, has attracted much 
 attention and obtained a wide circulation. 
 
 "This may be in part owing to the novel circumstances of 
 its publication ; but it is something more and better than a mere 
 novelty. In its volumes may be found sprightly delineations of 
 home-scenes and characters, highly wrought imaginative pieces, 
 tales of genuine pathos and humor, and sweet fairy stories and 
 fables, reminding the reader, at times, of Jean Paul." 
 
 Holthaus. 
 
 In The Middlesex Standard for November 14, 1844, of 
 which Whittier was editor, appears : 
 
 "The following review of a singular and interesting book 
 we copy from The London Non-Conformist: Wanderings of a 
 Journeyman Tailor Through Europe and the East, During the 
 Years 1824 to 1840, by P. D. Holthaus. Journeyman Tailor 
 from Werdohle, Westphalia. Translated from the German by 
 W. Howitt. Longman & Company, 1844." 
 
 Auerbach. 
 
 An unpublished letter 274 from Whittier to Mrs. J. F. Fields, 
 dated Amesbury, 12 mo. 17, 1861, says: 
 
 "Tell J. T. F. I have read Auerbach s story of Gellert and 
 find it very touching and beautiful, deserving all he said of it." 
 
 HISTORY AND HISTORICAL CHARACTERS. 
 
 Teuton. 
 
 In Child Songs: 21 * 
 
 "Heard in the Teuton s household songs, 
 
 And folk-lore of the Finn, 
 Where er to holy Christmas hearths 
 The Christ-child enters in!" 
 
 Anabaptists of Minister. 
 Article on The World s End: 2 
 
 274 Original letter in possession of Mrs. J. T. Fields, Boston. 
 
 275 Cambridge Edition of Poetical Works, page 454. 
 
 " Prose Works, Vol. I, page 422. Article on The World s End. 
 
142 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Think of the wild enthusiasts of Minister, verily imagining 
 that the millenial reign had commenced in their mad city !" 
 
 Sack of Magdeburg. 
 
 Article on Indian Civilization: 277 
 
 "What Indian raid has been more dreadful than the Sack of 
 Magdeburg, the massacre of Glencoe, the nameless atrocities of 
 the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, the murders of St. 
 Bartholomew s day, the unspeakable agonies of the South of 
 France under the demoniac rule of revolution!" 
 
 Battle of Lutzen. 
 In poem Barclay of Ury: 278 
 
 "Call ye Coward him who stood 
 Ankle deep in Littzen s blood 
 With the brave Gustavus?" 
 
 Tilly. 
 In the same poem : 27Q 
 
 "Speak the word, and, master mine, 
 As we charged on Tilly s line, 
 
 And his Walloon lancers, 
 Smiting through their midst we ll teach 
 Civil look and decent speech 
 
 To these boyish prancers !" 
 
 Prussia. 
 
 "Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks ! 
 Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva s banks! 
 Brave sport to see the fledgling born 
 Of freedom by its parent torn! 
 Safe now in Speilberg s dungeon cell, 
 Safe drear Siberia s frozen hell : 
 With Slavery s flag o er both unrolled, 
 What of the New World fears the Old?" 280 
 
 277 Prose Works, Riverside Edition, Vol. Ill, page 235. 
 
 278 Poetical Works, page 34, Cambridge Edition. 
 
 279 Poetical Works, page 34, Cambridge Edition. 
 
 wo Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, Poem on Yorktown, page 303. 
 
Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 143 
 
 Frederick the Great. 
 
 "Frederick of Prussia, 281 apostrophizing the shades of Cato 
 and Brutus, 
 
 Vous de la liberte heros que je revere/ 
 
 while in full exercise of his despotic power, was quite as con 
 sistent as these democratic slave-owners, whose admiration of 
 liberty increased in exact ratio with its distance from their own 
 plantations." 
 
 In The New England Review, February 7, 1831, is a notice 
 in the column for Foreign News : 
 
 Prussia: "It is stated that a Revolution has commenced in 
 Prussia. An insurrection, of which the details are not yet known, 
 has undoubtedly taken place at Konigsburg. The King learned 
 of the revolt of Warsaw, and the disturbances at Konigsburg, 
 perhaps at the same moment ; 30,000 troops are marching on Lux 
 emburg, an army advances towards Poland (Polen), and more 
 troops are required in the ancient capital of the Kingdom." 
 
 Saxony. 
 
 In The New England Review, November 8, 1831, under 
 Foreign News, is an account of a revolution in Saxony, and the 
 abdication of King Maximilian. 
 
 In The Essex Gazette of 9 mo., 10, 1836, is a short notice 
 telling of the "bigotry of the late King of Saxony". 
 
 MENT OF SCIENCE. 
 Priessnite. 
 
 "Such we know to be the case with Dr. Holmes. He was 
 born for the laughter cure , as certainly as Priessnitz was for the 
 water cure , and has been quite as successful in his way, while 
 his prescriptions are infinitely more agreeable." 2 
 
 In The Stranger in Lowell he says again of the noted phy 
 sician of the "water cure" : 
 
 281 Prose Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Riverside Edition, Vol. Ill, 
 page 114. Article on Democracy and Slavery. 
 
 282 Vol. Ill, Prose Works, Riverside Edition, page 377 . Article on Mirth 
 and Medicine. 
 
144 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "But this dull, dark autumn day of thaw and rain when the 
 very clouds seem too pitiless and languid to storm outright, or 
 take themselves out of the way of fair weather wet beneath and 
 above reminding one of that rayless atmosphere of Dante s 
 Third Circle, where the infernal Priessnitz administers his hydro 
 pathic torment : 
 
 " A heavy, cursed and relentless drench, 
 The land it soaks is putrid. 
 
 Professor von Liebig. 
 
 In The Middlesex Standard of January 16, 1845, there is 
 an extract quoted, as the editor says in a note, "from a speech of 
 this distinguished gentleman at a recent dinner in Glasgow, 
 Scotland". 
 
 MUSICIANS. 
 Beethoven. 
 
 In an article on Reading for the Blind: 283 
 "What visions of beauty and sublimity passed before the 
 inward and spiritual sight of blind Milton and Beethoven!" 
 
 REFERENCES TO GERMAN SCENERY. 
 Our River: 284 
 
 "We know that Arno s banks are fair, 
 And Rhine has castled shadows," 
 
 The Panorama: 285 
 
 "Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed hall, 
 And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall, 
 Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine, 
 Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine." 
 
 He refers again to the Rhine in The Valley of the 
 Merrimac: 286 
 
 * 8 Vol. Ill, Prose Works, Riverside Edition, page 236. 
 394 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 224. 
 285 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 324. 
 288 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 485. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 145 
 
 "And fair streams may glide where the climate is milder, 
 Where winter ne er gathers and spring ever blooms, 
 
 And others may roll where the region is wilder, 
 Their dark waters hid in some forest s deep gloom, 
 
 Where the thunder-scath d peaks of Helvetia are frowning, 
 And the Rhine s rapid waters encircle their bases," 
 
 In Remembrance of Joseph Sturge 281 he speaks of "Hoi- 
 stein s birchen-belted meadows". 
 
 WHITTIER IN GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 There does not exist in German a translation of Whittier s 
 works as a whole, but there are several good translations of some 
 of his best known poems. Though he has not been widely known 
 or read in Germany, he has been appreciated by a few, whom his 
 simple and sincere words could not fail to attract. He is men 
 tioned with appreciation in some of the German histories of 
 American literature. 
 
 An article in Vom Pels zum Meer 288 about Whittier is entitled 
 Der Theokrit des Westen, This article, written by M. Ott fried, 
 in 1893, the year after the poet s death, speaks of Whittier with 
 the highest appreciation : "In seinen Dichtungen offenbart sich eine 
 Innigkeit und Zartheit der Empfindung, eine Warme und Teife 
 des Gefiihles, welche abwechselnd im zartesten Schmelz der lyri- 
 schen Stimmung, wie in kerniger Kraft und Scharfe der Bered- 
 samkeit, und in der wohlklingendsten Form zum Ausdruck kommt 
 und an Innigkeit und Einfachheit wohl kaum iibertroffen werden 
 kann. . . . Dazu ist seine Dichtung nach Stoff, Gehalt und 
 Ausdruck eine, wie wir schon erwahnten, spezifisch amerikani- 
 sche; er ist der eigentiimlichste Dichter, welchen Amerika her- 
 vorgebracht hat." 
 
 An unpublished letter 289 from Annie Fields from Barbizon, 
 France^ dated July 10, 1892, is of especial interest as showing the 
 esteem in which Whittier was held by some of his contemporaries. 
 She writes: 
 
 287 Cambridge Edition of Whittier s Poems, page 199. 
 
 ** Vom Pels zum Meer, 12-14, J. 12. 1893. Bd. II, S. 243. 
 
 289 The original of this letter is in the Whittier home at Amesbury, Mass. 
 
146 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 "I am sending a paper, which has been sent me by Herman 
 Grimm of Berlin with the request that you would kindly write 
 your name at the end of the printed list of names. It is a tribute 
 Germany wishes to pay to the Grand Duchess upon her silver 
 wedding clay in October, because she has taken great care of all 
 the Goethe memorials. After writing on the paper, will you let 
 Phoebe address an envelope to Professor Grimm, whose name is 
 in the list with his full address, and mail your autograph signature 
 directly to him. I fear this will seem ?. great bore, but I believe 
 only two or three American names are to be added to the list 
 yours and Dr. Holmes. I do not know surely of any others. 
 Professor Grimm does not write English easily and feels shy of 
 doing so at all to persons he does not know very well." 
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF WHITTIER S POEMS INTO GERMAN. 
 
 Besides the translations already mentioned of Maud Mul- 
 ler* Barbara Frietchie* The Song of the Slaves in the Desert? 
 Clerical Oppressors? and The Homestead? there are translations 
 of the following poems : 
 
 Snowbound, Eingeschneit by Karl Knortz. 
 
 Seed-time and Harvest, Aussaat und Ernte, 291 by Adolf 
 Strodtman. 
 
 Winterbildcr, D dmmcrungsbilder 2 * 2 and The Cable Hymn, 
 Der Atlantische Telegraph, all by E. O. Hopp. 
 
 The Worship of Nature, Die Andacht dcr Natur, 2 ^ by Karl 
 Elze. 
 
 Knortz in his translation of Snowbound, unfortunately uses 
 hexameter instead of Whittier s iambic tetrameter, thus requir- 
 
 a See page 61. 
 b See page 71. 
 c See page 40 and note 43. 
 d See page 76. 
 e See page 73. 
 
 290 K. Knortz, Zwei amerikanische Idyllen, Berlin, 1879. 
 381 Adolf Strodtman, Amerikanische Anthologie, Leipzig, page 125. 
 883 England and Amerika, herausgegeben von Julius Hart, Minden, 1888. 
 m Von beiden Ufern des Atlantik, herausgegeben von W. Prinzhorn, 1894, 
 page 418. 
 
 894 Karl Elze, Gedichte, Halle, 1878, page 331. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 147 
 
 ing the use of many extra words, and making the translation 
 heavy and dragging. 
 
 For Whittier s : 
 
 "The sun that brief December day 
 Rose cheerless over hills of gray. 
 And, darkly circled, gave at noon 
 A sadder light than waning moon." 
 
 Knortz has : 
 
 "Matten Schein warf die Sonne am kurzen Tag im December 
 L T ber graues Gebirg; und Mittags mit dunkelm Kreise 
 War noch schwacher ihr Licht als das des Monds, wenn er ab- 
 nimmt." 
 
 E. O. Hopp s translation of The Cable Hymn is well done. 
 
 "O einsame Bucht von Trinity, 
 
 O odes Uferland, 
 Beug betend dich zu Boden hie ; 
 Hor Gottes Ruf am Strand!" 
 
 Karl Elze s Andacht der Natur is not a literal translation, 
 but a paraphrase of Whittier s The Worship of Nature. Elze 
 uses the same meter as our poet, but has only nine stanzas in his 
 poem, while Whittier has ten. 
 
 Dammerungsbild, by E. O. Hopp, is the translation of a 
 selection from Whittier s Mountain Pictures, Part II Monad- 
 nock from Wachussett beginning : 
 
 "So twilight deepens " 
 
 to: 
 
 The pastoral curfew of the cowbell rung. 
 
 295 
 
 ** Whittier s Poems, Cambridge Edition, page 156. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE EVERLASTING TAPER. 
 By J. G. Whittier. 
 
 "Previous to the first revolution in France, in the ancient 
 town of Amiens, among other marvels and curiosities, the 
 stranger was certain of being edified with the holy candle, or 
 everlasting taper which had burned for two centuries in a dim 
 niche of the moss-grown church, unwasting as the brilliance of 
 a star shedding forever the same pale light upon the antique 
 and fretted ceiling, and on the half ruined, but still gorgeous altar, 
 whence a thousand masses had gone up for the quiet sleeping of 
 those, whose places shall know them no more forever . 
 
 "The stranger, while mingling with the crowd who on certain 
 days were allowed to witness this miraculous taper, might easily 
 learn the story of its origin. From the corpulent monk to the lean 
 and meagre artisan, all knew it by heart. It is an old narration, 
 and would figure well in an improved edition of the doings of 
 Faust s Mephistopholes. 
 
 "Two or three centuries ago there lived in the town a car 
 penter by the name of Christopher, a hard working, but poverty 
 stricken mechanic. Finding his utmost exertions inadequate to 
 the support of himself and family, he resolved and there was 
 a good deal of worldly wisdom in his resolution to better his 
 fortune in this life, even if by so doing he might incur the risk 
 of faring something worse in the next. Christopher, who was a 
 punctual attendant at church, had often heard his pastor expatiate 
 upon the exceeding power of the Arch Enemy of Man, and upon 
 his willingness and ability to reward with temporal riches those 
 who yielded up to him the small matter of a mortgage of their 
 souls. Christopher had toiled himself to a skeleton starvation 
 stared him in the face and worse than all, a new quality had 
 begun to develop itself in his character, in the shape of extreme 
 
150 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 laziness. He, therefore, upon mature deliberation, concluded to 
 open a sort of barter trade with the Enemy, and for the peace of 
 his body hazard that of his soul. He accordingly prayed lustily 
 for the presence of that being, from whose neighborhood all good 
 Catholics and devout, ask deliverance. The Devil, whether en 
 gaged in other, and more profitable speculations, or from a 
 presentiment of ill-luck, did not readily answer the diabolical 
 petitions of the carpenter; but tired at last with the continued 
 importunities of Christopher, he one evening made his appearance 
 in the shape of a respectable looking monkey. 
 
 What would st thou with me ? said the hairy Demon, 
 thou hast been long calling. Speak, in what can I serve thee ? 
 
 " My Lord ! said Christopher bowing humbly, I am told 
 that your Lordship dispenses wealth at pleasure; and should be 
 very greatly obliged to you for a small share of your favors ! 
 
 But what wilt thou give me ? interrupted the Devil. 
 
 " Alas my Lord! said Christopher, laying his hand on his 
 heart I am miserably poor. 
 
 "There was a pathos in the manner and tones of Christopher 
 which seemed to reach even the inexorable heart of Lucifer. 
 Well, well said he, there s no need of despondency I ll 
 give thee as much gold as thou desirest for thirty years but after 
 that time, having an occasion for a carpenter to make some 
 trifling repairs in my infernal palace, I shall come myself and 
 conduct thee thither/ 
 
 "There was so much apparent candor and frankness in this 
 proposition that Christopher without hesitation signed the con 
 tract ; and the Infernal Bargainer made a spring up the chimney 
 and vanished. Christopher wished for a thousand pistoles and the 
 sum was the next instant in his pockets he continued his wishes 
 and they were all gratified never was Devil more punctual. In 
 short, Christopher began to believe that the sooty dignitary had 
 been most maliciously belied and slandered it absolutely pained 
 his heart to hear him abused and he even quareled with his good 
 friend, the Abbot, for handling his Satanic Generalship without 
 gloves in one of his sermons. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 151 
 
 "One night the fifteenth anniversary of his Satanic bar 
 gain, the now wealthy and highly respected Christopher was sit 
 ting in company with a large number of friends, enjoying a social 
 chat amidst the clatter of glasses, and the pouring of wine. Chanc 
 ing to send his servant for a particular and rare wine in his cellar, 
 he was not a little surprised at the fellow s returning without it, 
 and informing him that a large black man sat upon the cask, 
 desiring to speak with the master of the house. The nerves of 
 Christopher shook for a minute for he thought of his infernal 
 customer but resolving to prepare for the worst, and knowing 
 that but half his lease had expired he took the bond in his 
 hand, and boldly sallied down stairs. It was the Devil sure enough. 
 There he sat sullenly on the wine cask 
 
 A towsy tyke, black, grim and large. He lifted his head 
 as Christopher entered and scowled on him through his shaggy 
 eye-brows like the glare of a comet through a thunder cloud. 
 
 " I am come for you, he said. Christopher held out his 
 bond and laughed the Devil mocked him. 
 
 You are mistaken tis but fifteen years as yet the lease 
 is half out. 
 
 "Again the Devil laughed, and a most infernal cacchination 
 he made of it. You are mistaken, he returned, fifteen years of 
 days and fifteen years of nights, make thirty years according to 
 my arithmetic. So prepare yourself. 
 
 "It was in vain that Christopher remonstrated the Devil 
 was inexorable. One request only the all pitiless demon granted. 
 His victim was allowed a brief half hour to bid his friends fare 
 well. With a heavy heart Christopher ascended, and told his 
 friends of his misfortune. All were for a moment struck dumb 
 with grief, not for the loss of Christopher, but for the loss of his 
 excellent wine and delicate viands. A plethoric little friar at 
 length advised Christopher to return to the demon and ask per 
 mission to live, while the taper he held in his hand continued to 
 burn. A drowning man will catch at straws, and Christopher 
 obeyed. The demon for once was lenient, and like the cat playing 
 with its victim, he allowed the carpenter a momentary respite. 
 
152 Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Up came the wretched bargainer with his candle. The friar seized 
 it with a sly wink of the eye, and plunged it into a basin of holy 
 water. A virtue was forthwith imparted to the taper, which pre 
 vented its wasting ; and Belzebub foiled in his purpose outwitted 
 by a crafty monk retired with a noise which shook the building 
 like an earthquake. The monk placed the taper in a niche of the 
 church, where it burned on for ages. 
 
 Christopher lived to be a good old age and died peaceably 
 in his bed, leaving his immense estate to the convent of which the 
 quick witted friar was a brother. 
 
 II. 
 
 In Whittier s Amesbury home, I found among his books the 
 following on German subjects: 
 
 An Introduction to German Grammar. Rev. Dr. Wender- 
 born. London, MDCCXCVII. 
 
 Art Studies in Munich. Anna Mary Howitt. Boston : Tick- 
 nor, Reed & Fields, 1854. 
 
 The Sorrows of Werther. Translated from the German of 
 Goethe. Hartford, Ct. : Andrus & Judd, 1835. 
 
 The Fairy Mythology of Various Countries. Thomas 
 Keightly. London, 1850. (This book contained a chapter on 
 German fairy lore. ) 
 
 German Lyrics. Charles F. Brooks. Boston : Ticknor, Reed 
 & Fields, 1853. 
 
 Goethe s Faust. Translated by Charles F. Brooks. Boston : 
 Ticknor & Fields, 1856. 
 
 Lewis Life of Goethe. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1856. 
 
 Sketches of and from Jean Paul Richter. London, 1859. 
 (Presented to John G. Whittier as a mark of esteem from the 
 author Samuel James Capper.) Broughton, Cumberland, 4 mo., 
 1862. 
 
 Zschokke, Meditations on Death and Eternity. Stunden der 
 Andacht, ascribed to Zschokke. Translated from the German by 
 Frederick Rowan. Boston : Ticknor & Fields, 1863. 
 
 Life of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. Elizabeth Buckingham 
 Lee. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1864. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 153 
 
 The Camphaner Thai and Other Writings. From the German 
 of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1864. 
 
 Letters and Journals relating to the War of the American 
 Revolution and the Capture of the German Troops at Saratoga. 
 By Mrs. General Riedesel. Translated from the original German 
 by Wm. L. Stone. Albany, 1867. 
 
 Goethe s Hermann and Dorothea. Translated by Ellen 
 Frothingham. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1870. 
 
 Scheffel s Gaudeamiis. Translated from the German by 
 Clias. G. Leland. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1867. 
 
 Theologia Germanica. Edited by Dr. Pfeiffer from the only 
 complete manuscript known. Translated from the German by 
 Susanna Winckworth. London: Macmillan & Co., 1874. 
 
 Poems. Translated from the Spanish and German by Henry 
 Phillips, Jr. Philadelphia, 1878. 
 
 William Penn in Germany. Journal of Wm. Penn while 
 visiting Holland and Germany in 1677. Philadelphia, 1878. 
 
 In and Around Berlin. Minerva Brace Norton. Chicago, 
 1889. 
 
 In the beautiful home, Oak Knoll, of Whittier s cousin Mrs. 
 A. J. Woodman at Danvers, Mass., where the poet spent much 
 of his time in his later life, I found among the books in his study: 
 
 The Lives, Sentiments and Sufferings of Some of the Re 
 formers and Martyrs, Before, Since and Independent of the 
 Lutheran Re formation. By William Hodgson. Philadelphia, 1867. 
 
 A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. By 
 August Wilhelm Schlegel. Translated by John Black. Revised 
 according to the latest German edition by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison. 
 London, 1871. 
 
 Poems and Ballads of Goethe. Translated by W. Edmon- 
 stone Aytoun and Theodore Martin. New York : Holt & Williams, 
 1871. 
 
 Goethe s Correspondence with a Child. Boston : Ticknor 
 & Fields, 1872. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Dutch and Other Essays. Phebe Earle 
 Gibbons. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co., 1872. 
 
154 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Bride of the Rhine: 200 Miles in a Mosel Row-Boat. By 
 George E. Waring. Osgood & Co., Boston, 1878. 
 
 I found also among the books of his cousins, the Misses 
 Johnson : 
 
 Faust, A Tragedy. By Bayard Taylor. Boston : Fields & 
 Co., 1871. Presented to Caroline C. Johnson from John G. Whit- 
 tier, i mo., ist, 1886. 
 
 As Whittier gave away many of his books to his friends and 
 relatives, and some have been sold at auction, there are doubtless 
 many more treating of German literature that belonged to him, 
 to which I have not had access. 
 
 III. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Only the books are given here which were actually made use 
 of in writing this dissertation, but not by any means all the books 
 which were consulted. 
 
 PERIODICALS CONTAINING POEMS, LETTERS OR PROSE ARTICLES, 
 
 BY WHITTIER. 
 
 Boston Statesman. 1827-28. 
 
 The Boston Spectator. 1827. 
 
 The American Manufacturer. Boston, 1829. 
 
 Columbia Star. Washington, D. C., 1829-32. 
 
 The Connecticut Mirror. 1827-30. 
 
 The Ladies Magazine. 1829-32. 
 
 The Haverhill Gazette. Haverhill, Mass., 1830. 
 
 The Haverhill Iris. 1831-34. 
 
 The New England Review. Hartford, Conn., 1830-31. 
 
 The New England Magazine. 1831-35. 
 
 The Liberator. 1834-46. 
 
 Essex Gazette. Haverhill, Mass., 1836. 
 
 The Democratic Review. Washington, D. C., 1837-47. 
 
 The Emancipator. New York, 1837-42. 
 
 Anti-Slavery Reporter. New York, 1837. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Freeman. Philadelphia, 1838-40. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 155 
 
 The Boston Daily Transcript. 1841-60. 
 
 The Knickerbocker Magazine. New York, 1841. 
 
 The Middlesex Standard. Lowell, Mass., 1844. 
 
 The Essex Transcript. 1844-46. 
 
 The National Era. 1847-60. 
 
 The Atlantic Monthly. 1857-90. 
 
 The Independent. 1859-65. 
 
 St. Nicholas. 1888. 
 
 COLLECTED AND SEPARATE WORKS OF WHITTIER. 
 
 Literary Remains of John G. C. Brainard, with Biographical 
 Sketch by Whittier. Hartford, 1832. 
 
 Justice and Expediency; or } Slavery Considered With a 
 View to Its Rightful and Effectual Remedy, Abolition. Haver- 
 hill, 1833. 
 
 Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Ques 
 tion in the United States Between the Years 1830 and 1838. 
 Boston, 1837. 
 
 The Stranger in Lowell. Boston, 1845. 
 
 Literary Recreations and Miscellanies. Boston, 1854. 
 
 The Patience of Hope. By Dora Greenwell. Edited, with 
 an Introduction, by J. G. Whittier. Boston, 1863. 
 
 Child Life. A collection of poems. Edited by J. G. Whit 
 tier. Illustrated. Boston, 1871. 
 
 The Journal of John Woolman. With Introduction by 
 J. G. Whittier. Boston, 1872. 
 
 Child Life in Prose. Edited by J. G. Whittier. Boston, 
 
 1874. 
 
 Letters of Lydia Maria Child. With Biographical Introduc 
 tion by J. G. Whittier. Boston, 1883. 
 
 The Writings of John Greenlcaf Whittier. Riverside 
 Edition. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1888. 
 
 Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. 
 Cambridge Edition. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894. 
 
 A New Year s Address to Patrons of Essex Gazette, 1828. 
 Boston, 1903. 
 
156 Whittier s Relation to Gentian Life and Thought 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES, COMPILATIONS. 
 
 The Poets and Poetry of America. By Rufus W. Griswold. 
 Philadelphia, 1856. (Whittier, pp. 389-406.) 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier, His Life, Genius and Writings, 
 By W. Sloane Kennedy. Boston, 1882. 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier. A Biography. By Francis H. 
 Underwood. Boston, 1884. 
 
 A Memorial of John G. Whittier, From His Native City, 
 Haverhill, Mass. Published by Authority of the City Council, 
 1893. 
 
 Life of John Greenleaf Whittier. By W. J. Linton. 
 London, 1893. 
 
 Whittier; Notes of His Life and of His Friendships. By 
 Mrs. James T. Fields. New York, 1893. 
 
 Personal Recollections of John G. Whittier. By Mary B. 
 Claflin. New York, 1893. 
 
 Sketches From Concord and A p pled ore. By Frank Preston 
 Stearns, 1895. 
 
 Whittier, Prophet, Seer and Man. By B. O. Flower. 
 Boston, 1896. 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier. By Richard Burton, in series of 
 Beacon Biographies. Boston, 1900. 
 
 Personal Recollections of the Poet Whittier. By R. S. 
 Rantoul. Publication of Essex Institute. Salem, Mass., 1901. 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier. By T. W. Higginson, in series of 
 "English Men of Letters." New York, 1902. 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier. By George Rice Carpenter, in 
 series of "American Men of Letters." Boston, 1903. 
 
 Whittier -Land, containing Anecdotes of and Poems by 
 Whittier not previously collected. By S. T. Pickard. Boston, 
 1904. 
 
 Reminiscences of John G. Whit tier s Life at Oak Knoll, 
 Danvers, Mass. By Mrs. Abbey J. Woodman. Salem Mass., 
 1908. 
 
 Whittier Correspondence. By John Albree. Salem, Mass., 
 1911. 
 
Whittiers Relation to German Life and Thought 157 
 
 PERIODICALS FOR REFERENCE ON WHITTIER. 
 
 Vom Pels sum Meer. 1893. Bd. 2, S. 243. 
 The Dial. No. 43, p. 408. 
 The Arena. Vol. 10, p. 153. 
 Methodist Review. No. 55, p. 245. 
 The Catholic World. Vol. 75, p. 353. 
 New World. Vol. 2, p. 88. 
 
 GERMAN AMERICANS. 
 
 The Works of Charles Pollen, With a Memoir of His Life 
 in Five Volumes. By his wife. Boston, 1842. 
 
 The German Element in the United States. By Albert 
 Bernhardt Faust. Vol. 2. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1909. 
 
 Die Deutschen in dem Amerikanischcn Biirgerkrieg. (1861- 
 65.) von Wilhelm Kaufmann, 1911. 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor. By Marie Hansen 
 Taylor and Horace E. Scudder. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884. 
 
 Bayard Taylor. By Albert H. Smyth. American Men of 
 Letters. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1896. 
 
 GERMANS OF GERMANTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Der Deutsche Pioneer. April and May, 1872. 
 
 The German Mystics as American Colonists. By Robert 
 Ellis Thompson. The Perm Monthly, August and October, 1871 ; 
 
 Francis Daniel Pastor-ins. By Dr. Oswald Seidensticker. 
 The Penn Monthly, January and February, 1872. 
 
 The Settlement of Germantown, Pennsylvania. By Hon. 
 Samuel Pennypacker. Philadelphia, 1899. 
 
 The Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius. By Marion Dexter 
 Learned. Philadelphia, 1908. 
 
 DUNKERS. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Dutch and Other Essays. By Phebe 
 Earle Gibbons. Philadelphia, 1882. 
 
158 Whit tier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 Chronicon Ephratense. By Lamech and Agrippa. Trans 
 lated by J. Max Hark, 1889. 
 
 The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1798-1842. By 
 Julius Friedrich Sachse. Philadelphia, 1889. 
 
 A History of the German Baptist Brethren in Europe and 
 America. By Martin Grove Brumbaugh. 1890. 
 
 The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1742-1800. By 
 Julius Friedrich Sachse. Philadelphia, 1900. 
 
 Music of the Ephrata Cloister. By Julius Friedrich Sachse. 
 Lancaster, Pa., 1903. 
 
 Bibliography of Church Music Books issued in Pennsylvania. 
 Articles in Penn. Germania. By James Warrington. 1912. 
 
 KEEZAR. 
 The History of Haverhill, Mass. By B. L. Mirick. 1832. 
 
 BARBARA FRITCHIE. 
 
 Life of Whittier s Heroine, Barbara Frit chic. By Henry M. 
 Nixdorf. 1887. 
 
 Barbara Fritchie, a Study. By Caroline H. Ball. Boston, 
 1892. 
 
 Article on Barbara Fritchie. The Sun, Sunday, August 12, 
 1912. 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 Goethe Jahrbuch. Bd. 25, S. 233. 
 
 Karl Kiesewetter, Faust in der Geschichte und Tradition. 
 Leipzig, 1893. 
 
 Catalogue of Anderson Auction Co. s Sale of Literary 
 Property. February 6, 1903. 
 
 C. J. P. SPITTA. 
 
 C. J. P. Spitta s Gedichte, Psalter und Plarfe. ]. Kohler. 
 Philadelphia, 1888. 
 
 Dictionary of Hynmology. Edited by John Julian, D.D. 
 Rev. Ed. Published by John Murray. London, 1907. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 159 
 
 JOHANNES RONGE. 
 
 John Ronge, The Holy Coat of Treves and the New German 
 Catholic Church. New York, 1845. 
 
 Life of Johannes Ronge. London, 1846. 
 
 MYSTICISM. 
 
 Deutsche My sticker des iqten Jahrhunderts. Von Franz 
 Pfeiffer. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1845. 
 
 The History and Life of the Rev. Dr. John Tauter zvith 
 Twenty-five of his Sermons. By Susanna Winckworth. Lon 
 don, 1857. 
 
 The Penn Monthly. 1879. 
 
 Jacob Boehrne, Sein Leben und seine theosophischen Werke. 
 Von Johannes Claasen. 3 Bde, Stuttgart, 1885. 
 
 The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme. By Franz Hart- 
 man. Boston, 1891. 
 
 Studies in Mystical Religion. By Rufus M. Jones. London, 
 1909. 
 
 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 The Poets of Transcendentalism, An Anthology. By George 
 Willis Cooke. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1903. 
 
 ELIZABETH FRY AND ST. ELIZABETH. 
 
 Memoir of the Life of Elisabeth Fry vvith Extracts from 
 her Journal and Letters. By her two daughters. 2 Vols. Philadel 
 phia, 1847. 
 
 Proceedings at the Unveiling of a Bust of Elizabeth Frv at 
 the Friends School. Providence, R. I., 1885. 
 
 The Two Elisabeths. By Augustine Jones. 1900. 
 
 E. M. ARNDT. 
 
 Ernst Moritz Arndts Marchen. Berlin, 1818. 
 The Fairy Mythology of Various Countries. By Thomas 
 Keightly. London, 1850. 
 
160 Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 
 
 HISTORIES OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Geschichte der Litteratur Nordamerikas. Von Edward En- 
 gel, Leipzig. 
 
 German Literature in American Magazines Prior to 1846. 
 By Scott Holland Goodnight, University of Wisconsin. Diss, 
 1907. 
 
 A History of German Literature. By John G. Robertson. 
 New York, 1908. 
 
 Literary History of America. By Barrett Wendell. New 
 York, 1911. 
 
 GERMAN ANTHOLOGIES AND WORKS CONTAINING TRANSLATIONS 
 OF WHITTIER S POEMS. 
 
 Adolph Strodtmann, Lieder und Balladenbuch. Hamburg, 
 1862. 
 
 Adolph Strodtmann, Amerikanische Anthologie. Leipzig. 
 
 J. Noroth, Blilten der cnglischcn und amerikanischen Poesie. 
 Boston, 1874. 
 
 Ernst O. Hopp, Unter dem Sternenbanncr. Bromberg, 1877. 
 
 Karl Elze, Gedichte. Halle, 1878. 
 
 Karl Knortz, Zivei Amerikanische Idyllen. Berlin, 1879. 
 
 Karl Knortz, Poeticher Hausschatz der Nordamerikaner. 
 Oldenburg und Leipzig. 
 
 Julius Hart, England und Amcrika. Minden, 1885. 
 
 Johann Straubenmiiller, Herbstroscn, Gesammelte Gedichte. 
 New York, 1889. 
 
 Wilhelmine Prinzhorn, Von beiden Ufern des Atlantik. 
 Halle, 1894. 
 
 The Pennsylvania German Society, Proceedings and Ad 
 dresses at Harrisburg. Vol. 12. 1903. 
 
 GENERAL REFERENCES. 
 
 Matthias Claudius, Werke. Hamburg, 1819. Bd. II. 
 
 Tales of the Wild and Wonderful. Published in London 
 1825. Translated from the German of J. A. Apel. Philadelphia, 
 1826. 
 
Whittier s Relation to German Life and Thought 161 
 
 Anti-Slavery Pamphlet. Published by Garrison & Knapp. 
 Boston, 1834. 
 
 Blackwood s Edinburgh Magazine. 1844. 
 
 Luther s Tischreden. Ed. Forstemann. 
 
 Goedeke s Grundriss. Vol. 4. 
 
 Poets and Poetry of Europe. Edited by H. W. Longfellow. 
 
 HaufFs Werke. Herausgegeben von Dr. C. Flaischlen. 
 Bd. II. 
 
 Riickert s Poetische Werke. Frankfurt am M., 1882. Bd. III. 
 
 Herder s Sdmmtliche Werke. Herausgegeben von B. Suphan. 
 Berlin, 1884. Bd. II. 
 
 Jean Paul Richter, Levana. Berlin : Hempel. 
 
 Kluges Ausivahl Deutscher Gedichte. Altenburg, 1896. 
 
 Bulletin of Essex Institute. Vol. 25. 
 
 Catalogue of Anderson Auction Sale of Literary Property. 
 N. Y. November 22, 1909. 
 
 Bibliographic und Kritik der deutschen Ubertragungen aus 
 der amerikanischen Dichtung. University of Chicago, Diss. By 
 Alfred I. Roehm. Leipzig, 1910. 
 
 Harmonies Poetiques et Religicuses. By A. Le Lamartine. 
 Hachette et Cie. Paris, 1911. 
 
 Catalogue of C. F. Libbie <jr Co., Auction Sale of Literary 
 Property. Boston, January 24-25, 1911. 
 
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