the turmoil they could not enjoy the serenity which prevailed in those same days in the Boston or the Charleston where cultural pursuits were held in higher esteem than commercial activity. They were in the midst of a different cultural atmosphere. Bryant, Irving, Halleck, and Greeley led the way for a succeeding group of self-educated men. The New England writers of the day had been schooled at Harvard and Bowdoin and certain German universities, and the cultured men of Charleston were going abroad for study and travel in increasing numbers. In the midst of all the hurly-burly of New York there was no dominant circle who were disposed to take time for the leisurely contemplation of the finer things in art and life, and the art and life of New York suffered in consequence. In spite of all that had been said for generations about the employment of American subject matter, these men turned away from either the romance or the realities of the town. Except in rare instances they did not even satirize it. Instead they took refuge in sentimentalism and in remote times and places. "The Ballad of Babie Bell," "Ximen, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and Other Poems," "Poems of the Orient," "The Blameless Prince," "Poems Lyric and Idyllic," "Königsmark, and Other Poems," "The King's Bell," and "The Book of the East" were the natural output of such a group. Moreover, the plays were of the same sort. "Tortesa the Usurer," "The Merchant of Bogota," "Francesca da Rimini," and "Leonora, or the World's Own" represented the majority. "Fashion" and "Rip Van Winkle" were quite the exceptions. * * * * * Of his generation Stoddard was perhaps more devoted than any other in his worship of a fanciful and unvitalized Muse. The criticisms of Lowell and Holmes served as correctives for the artificialities of Stedman and Aldrich, but Stoddard made no poetic response either to the Civil War or to the march of science or to the religious changes that attended it. To the end of his career he was the complete product of the influences surrounding his youth. He had been brought to New York at the age of ten by his widowed mother and kept in school only until he was fifteen. For nine years he worked as an artisan, cultivating literature and literary people in his leisure hours. From 1853 to 1870 he held a post in the New York Customhouse, and from 1860 on, literary editorships with the _New York World_, the _Aldine_ and the _New York Mail and Express_.