. The great American book of biography . There was no appearance of extravaganza in any of Irvings literary con-temporaries in New York. Except in the Culprit Fay of Joseph RodmanDrake, there was no delicate and fanciful idealism. But all who versified,versified with polish. Not always flexible, seldom spirited, never very original. 640 THE STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. they were unexceptionably refined. They sedulously imitated classical stand-ards. Chaste diction, soundness of feeling, and manly reserve combined to^make some of Fitz-Greene Hallecks poems perfect of their kind. His MarcoBozza
. The great American book of biography . There was no appearance of extravaganza in any of Irvings literary con-temporaries in New York. Except in the Culprit Fay of Joseph RodmanDrake, there was no delicate and fanciful idealism. But all who versified,versified with polish. Not always flexible, seldom spirited, never very original. 640 THE STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. they were unexceptionably refined. They sedulously imitated classical stand-ards. Chaste diction, soundness of feeling, and manly reserve combined to^make some of Fitz-Greene Hallecks poems perfect of their kind. His MarcoBozzaris has deservedly come down to our day, though only as a school-boyclassic. Even the fop of American letters, shallow, frivolous, clever Willis,always wrote smoothly and with an air of good breeding. The greatest repre-sentative of this class of poets, however, was William CuUen Bryant. He wasborn in Massachusetts, but removed to New York in 1825, when twenty-eightyears of age, and a year later became the editor of the New York Evening. ■ .lie I W . ^ ■ ^■:^*r^ Post. His vocabulary was limited ; his poetry was frigid. To be stirred byit is, in the words of Lowell, like being stirred up by the very North Pole.*It had little capacity for growth, and was at its best before the poet was out ofhis teens. But it had great virtues. Written in classic English, imbued withgreat dignity of thought and feeling, pervaded with what Wordsworth hascalled the religion of the woods —the devout and solemn reverence for theinvisible powers of nature—its manly reserve and repose elevated not only hiscountrymens ideals of literary excellence, but their ideals of life as he lived, New York city, which usually values only business abilities, ♦ James Russell Lowell, Fable for Critics. RECENT LITER A TURE. 641 respected his three vocations—that of the poet, that of the conscientious andconstructive journalist, and that of the pubhc man who never held office. Thislast vocat
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