Emotion and rhyme and commonplace incident are not enough to make a poem. One cannot embalm the memory of all one's friends in verse. In casting about for an explanation of the circumstance that our poet has so often chosen tame and uninspiring themes for his poems, we reach the conclusion that it is due to his solitary and uneventful life, and to the subdued and art-chilling atmosphere of his Quaker religion. You get, at any rate, no true impression of the intellectual breadth of the poet's mind from many of the productions of the period we are considering: the theme is too weak to support the poetical structure reared upon it. The poems and essays are written by one untoughened and unvitalized by varied and cheerful intercourse with men and affairs, a state of mind that was changed considerably as Mr. Whittier emerged from his semi-obscurity into a larger comprehension of his own powers. A minor fault of this period is the too frequent interruption of explanatory notes, that break and mar the free-flowing melody of versified thought. We find the same blemish in Longfellow's early work. * * * * * At the opening of the complete poetical works of Whittier stand two long Indian poems, with their war-paint and blood--like scarlet maples at the entrance of an aboriginal forest. The first of these poems, "Mogg Megone," is every way inferior to the second, or "The Bridal of Pennacook." "Mogg Megone" was published in 1836, and "The Bridal of Pennacook" in 1848. Mr. Whittier half apologizes for retaining the former of these in his complete works. There is, amongst much that, eliminated, might not be missed, a certain fresh and realistic diction, or nomenclature. It is picturesque, in portions somewhat dramatic and thrilling, and now is valuable as a link between the early stage of his authorship and the advanced culture of later years. In style it is an echo of Scott's "Lady of the Lake" or "Marmion."