generations as forcibly as they did to
their own, as a part of national history they will be long preserved.

Whittier's other poems deal so largely with the home-life of his
day that he is called the poet of New England. All its traditions,
memories, and beliefs are faithfully recorded by him. In _Snow-Bound_
we have the life of the New-England farmer. In _Mabel Martin_ we
see again the old Puritan dogmatism hunting down witches, burning or
hanging them, and following with relentless persecution the families
of the unhappy wretches who thus came under the ban. In _Mogg Megone_
is celebrated in beautiful verse one of those legends of Indian life
which linger immortally around the pines of New England, while the
_Grave by the Lake_, the _Changeling_, the _Wreck of Rivermouth_,
the _Dead Ship of Harpswell_, and others in the collection called the
_Tent on the Beach_, revive old traditions of those early days when
history mingled with legend and the belief in water-spirits and
ghostly warnings had not yet vanished.

In some exquisite ballads, such as _School Days_, we have the memory
of the past, fresh as the wild violets which the poet culled as a boy,
while _Maud Muller_ is a very idyl of a New-England harvest-field in
the poet's youth. In _Among the Hills_ we have some of Whittier's best
poems of country life, while many minor poems celebrate the hills and
streams of which he was so fond. Whittier wrote, also, many beautiful
hymns, and his poems for children, such as _King Solomon and the Ants_
and _The Robin_, show how easy it was for his great heart to enter
into the spirit of childhood. _Child Life_, his compilation of
poems for childhood, is one of the best ever made, while another
compilation, called _Songs of Three Centuries_, shows his wide
familiarity and appreciation of all that is great in English poetry.

After the sale of the old home of his childhood Whittier lived in the
house at Amesbury, which for many years his sister shared. His last
collection of poems, called _Sundown_, was published in 1890, for
some friends only, as a memento of his eightieth birthday. He died two
years later, and was buried in the yard of the Friends' meeting-house
in Amesbury, a short distance from his birthplace.

CHAPTER VIII

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

1804-1864

In 1804 the town of Salem, in Massachusetts, was the most important
seaport in America. With the regularity of the tides its ships sailed
to China, the Eas