The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[249] which has called up before us the homespun figure of an old friend of our boyhood, who had the good sense to discover that the poetic element existed in the simple home life of a country farmer, although himself unable to give a very creditable expression of it. He had the ‘vision,’ indeed, but the ‘faculty divine’ was wanting; or, if he possessed it in any degree, as Thersites says of the wit of Ajax, ‘it would not out, but lay coldly in him like fire in the flint.’

While engaged this morning in looking over a large exchange list of newspapers, a few stanzas of poetry in the Scottish dialect attracted our attention. As we read them, like a wizard's rhyme they seemed to have the power of bearing us back to the past. They had long ago graced the columns of that solitary sheet which once a week diffused happiness over our fireside circle, making us acquainted, in our lonely nook, with the goings — on of the great world. The verses, we are now constrained to admit, are not remarkable in themselves, truth and simple nature only; yet how our young hearts responded to them! Twenty year's ago there were fewer verse-makers than at present; and as our whole stock of light literature consisted of Ellwood's Davideis and the selections of Lindley Murray's English Reader, it is not improbable that we were in a condition to overestimate the contributions to the poet's corner of our village newspaper. Be that as it may, we welcome them as we would the face of an old friend, for they somehow remind us of the scent of haymows, the breath of cattle, the fresh greenery by the brookside, the