Consequently his mannerisms more and more drop away. He is a born preacher. And presently we see in him a decided advance toward the delineation of what is simply true and beautiful, without the appreciable pause by the way, "to point a moral and adorn a tale." For a preacher is not a poet; and true poetic fire must be dimmed at once, and the divine afflatus be a lack-lustre thing, when appeals by pious exhortation are brought in to fill out rhyme and metre. Many of Whittier's purely religious poems are the most exquisite and beautiful ever written. The tender feeling, the warm-hearted trustfulness, and the reverent touch of his hymns speak directly to our hearts. The prayer-hymn at the close of "The Brewing of Soma" ("Dear Lord and Father of mankind," etc.), and such poems as "At Last" and "The Wish of To-day," are unsurpassed in sacred song. Some one has said that in Whittier's books we rarely meet with ideas expressed in such perfection and idiosyncrasy of manner that ever afterward the same ideas must recur to our minds in the words of this author and no other; that is to say, there are few dicta, few portable and universally-quoted passages in his writings. But exception must be made in favor of his best hymns. Their stanzas haunt the mind with their beauty, and you are obliged to learn them by heart before you can have peace. These purely religious productions show Whittier's work at high-water mark, and as long as the English language is spoken, they will be employed by those who require a vehicle for thought, by which the true worship may be served. There is only one poet in the world whose works will not suffer by reading his entire poetical productions in consecutive perusal, and that is Shakspere. Poetry should be read solely for the refreshment and elevation of the mind, and only when one's mood requires it. Unquestionably, if so read, all mannerisms that Mr. Whittier might have been accused of at an early stage in his authorship would not appear so conspicuous. One of the mannerisms of our poet is his inclination toward the four-foot line with consecutive or alternate rhymes. Almost all of Burns's poetry is written as just described; and it is evident Mr. Whittier's ear was naturally inclined to it, from his early love for Burns, his patron saint, as it were, in those then untrodden fields. An ear educated by Tennyson, and the other Victorian poets, might be unable to grasp even the beauty of thought unless conveyed by their especial methods. One is pleased when rhymes are so masked, so subtly intertwined, and parted by intervening lines, that each shall seem like a delicate echo of that which preceded it,--the assonance just remembered, and no more. * * * * *