J. G. WHITTIER, “THE QUAKER POET.”

The last name we have to give in this long, but still incomplete, list of illustrious shoemakers is that of John Greenleaf Whittier, who happily is still living to charm and educate the English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic with his simple, spirit-stirring poetry. Whittier is frequently spoken of in the States as the Quaker Poet. This designation is sufficiently distinctive, for poets are not very numerous in the Society of Friends. Preachers, patriots, philanthropists, orators, and writers of prose are numerous enough, but poets are very hard to find in this intensely earnest and practical religious community.

Like his coreligionists in every generation since the days of George Fox and William Penn, Whittier is “right on all points” relating to social and religious reform. The assistance his vigorous, thrilling lines have given to every philanthropic movement in the United States is beyond calculation. For many years he was the Hans Sachs or Ebenezer Elliott of the Liberation cause, giving similar help by his songs to the work of emancipation in America to that which the German gave to the cause of Protestantism on the continent of Europe, and the Englishman gave to the labors of the Anti-Corn Law League in Great Britain.

His father was a farmer at Haverhill, Massachusetts, where the poet was born in 1807. He remained on the farm until he was nearly nineteen years of age, and divided his time between field-work and shoemaking. In 1825 he was sent to a college belonging to the Society of Friends. Four years after this he became editor of The American Manufacturer, which office he held for only twelve months, and then resigned in order to take the management of the New England Weekly Review. In 1832 he went back to the old home, worked on the farm, and edited The Haverhill Gazette. Twice he represented Haverhill in the State Legislature. All through life he has been a strong and consistent anti-slavery advocate, and at various times has been made secretary of societies and editor of papers whose aim has been the abolition of slavery. About 1838-39 he became the editor of the Pennsylvania Freeman, an ardent anti-slavery paper. It required no small amount of courage to advocate freedom for the slave in those days. On one occasion Whittier’s office was surrounded by a mob, who plundered and set fire to the building. His published works in prose and verse are very numerous, beginning with the “Legends of New England” in 1831, and coming down to volumes of verse like “The King’s Missive, Mabel Martin, and Later Poems,” etc.,[187] published within the last few years. Through all his writings there runs a healthy moral tone, and his poetry is no less distinguished for purity of sentiment than for sweetness of numbers and true poetic fire. No man in New England, nor, indeed, in the States, has earned a better title to the thanks and esteem of his fellow-countrymen than the “Quaker Poet,” who began the hard work of life by blending the duties of the farm with the occupation of a shoemaker. Whittier College at Salem, Iowa, was established and named in his honor.

Whittier has never forgotten his connection with the gentle craft in early life; nor has he been ashamed to own fellowship with its humble but worthy members. What he thinks of the craft itself, and of the spirit of the men who have followed it, may be learned from his lines addressed to shoemakers in the “Songs of Labor,” published in 1850:

TO SHOEMAKERS.

Ho! workers of the old time, styled

The Gentle Craft of Leather!

Young brothers of the ancient guild,

Stand forth once more together!

Call out again your long array,

In the olden merry manner!

Once more, on gay St. Crispin’s Day,

Fling out your blazoned banner!

Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone

How falls the polished hammer!

Rap, rap! the measured sound has grown

A quick and merry clamor.

Now shape the sole! now deftly curl

The glossy vamp around it,

And bless the while the bright-eyed girl

Whose gentle fingers bound it!

For you, along the Spanish main

A hundred keels are ploughing;

For you, the Indian on the plain

His lasso-coil is throwing;

For you, deep glens with hemlock dark

The woodman’s fire is lighting;

For you, upon the oak’s gray bark

The woodman’s axe is smiting.

For you, from Carolina’s pine

The rosin-gum is stealing;

For you, the dark-eyed Florentine

Her silken skein is reeling;

For you, the dizzy goatherd roams

His rugged Alpine ledges;

For you, round all her shepherd homes

Bloom England’s thorny hedges.

The foremost still, by day or night,

On moated mound or heather,

Where’er the need of trampled right

Brought toiling men together;

Where the free burghers from the wall

Defied the mail-clad master,

Than yours, at Freedom’s trumpet-call,

No craftsmen rallied faster.

Let foplings sneer, let fools deride—

Ye heed no idle scorner;

Free hands and hearts are still your pride,

And duty done your honor.

Ye dare to trust, for honest fame,

The jury Time empanels,

And leave to truth each noble name

Which glorifies your annals.

Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet,

In strong and hearty German;

And Bloomfield’s lay, and Gifford’s wit,

And patriot fame of Sherman;

Still from his book, a mystic seer,

The soul of Behmen teaches,

And England’s priestcraft shakes to hear

Of Fox’s leathern breeches.

The foot is yours; where’er it falls,

It treads your well-wrought leather,

On earthen floor, in marble halls,

On carpet, or on heather.

Still there the sweetest charm is found

Of matron grace or vestal’s,

As Hebe’s foot bore nectar round

Among the old celestials!

Rap, rap! your stout and bluff brogan,

With footsteps slow and weary,

May wander where the sky’s blue span

Shuts down upon the prairie.

On beauty’s foot, your slippers glance

By Saratoga’s fountains,

Or twinkle down the summer dance

Beneath the crystal mountains!

The red brick to the mason’s hand,

The brown earth to the tiller’s,

The shoe in yours shall wealth command,

Like fairy Cinderella’s!

As they who shunned the household maid

Beheld the crown upon her,

So all shall see your toil repaid

With heart and home and honor.

Then let the toast be freely quaffed,

In water cool and brimming—

“All honor to the good old Craft

Its merry men and women!”

Call out again your long array,

In the old time’s pleasant manner:

Once more, on gay St. Crispin’s Day,

Fling out his blazoned banner.

[INDEX.]

THE END.