necessary. Other works besides
those mentioned are _Two Rivulets_ and _Democratic Vistas_. In his later
years he retired to Camden, New Jersey, where he _d._ W. is the most
unconventional of writers. Revolt against all convention was in fact his
self-proclaimed mission. In his versification he discards rhyme almost
entirely, and metre as generally understood. And in his treatment of
certain passions and appetites, and of unadulterated human nature, he is
at war with what he considered the conventions of an effeminate society,
in which, however, he adopts a mode of utterance which many people
consider equally objectionable, overlooking, as he does, the existence
through all the processes of nature of a principle of reserve and
concealment. Amid much that is prosaic and rhetorical, however, it
remains true that there is real poetic insight and an intense and
singularly fresh sense of nature in the best of his writings.

_Works_, 12 vols., with _Life_. _See_ Stedman's _Poets of America_.
Monographs by Symonds, Clarke, and Salter.

WHITNEY, WILLIAM DWIGHT (1827-1894).--Philologist, _b._ at Northampton,
Mass., was Prof. of Sanskrit, etc., at Yale, and chief ed. of the
_Century Dictionary_. Among his books are _Darwinism and Language_ and
_The Life and Growth of Language_.

WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF (1807-1892).--Poet, was _b._ at Haverhill,
Massachusetts, of a Quaker family. In early life he worked on a farm. His
later years were occupied partly in journalism, partly in farming, and he
seems also to have done a good deal of local political work. He began to
write verse at a very early age, and continued to do so until almost his
latest days. He was always a champion of the anti-slavery cause, and by
his writings both as journalist and poet, did much to stimulate national
feeling in the direction of freedom. Among his poetical works are _Voices
of Freedom_ (1836), _Songs of Labour_ (1851), _Home Ballads_ (1859), _In
War Time_ (1863), _Snow Bound_ (1866), _The Tent on the Beach_ (1867),
_Ballads of New England_ (1870), _The Pennsylvania Pilgrim_ (1874). W.
had true feeling and was animated by high ideals. Influenced in early
life by the poems of Burns, he became a poet of nature, with which his
early upbringing brought him into close and sympathetic contact; he was
also a poet of faith and the ideal life and of liberty. He, however,
lacked concentration and intensity, and his want of early education made
him often loose i