Notes on Books and Articles

48 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION NOTES ON BOOKS AND ARTICLES By Henry J. Cadbury The frequent articles on Whittier in contemporary American periodicals it would be impractical for the Bulletin to list regularly. It is also unnecessary to do so since they are included in the very full bibliography which appears quarterly in American Literature. Reference is made here to some of the more interesting. T. Franklin Currier, of the Harvard University Library, has been working for years on a Whittier bibliography which it is to be hoped will soon be completed. Meanwhile we may record a few small published by-products of his labor: Whittier and the "New England Weekly Review " in The New England Quarterly, vi, 1933, pp. 589-597 ; Whittier and "Mary," ibid., p. 801 f. ; The Whittier Leaflet "Pericles," in The Library Quarterly, iv, 1934, pp. 175-178. In the New England Quarterly, viii (1935), 105ff., T. Franklin Currier brings to light Whittier's intervention in a local strike situation as revealed in a little known pamphlet of 1852 entitled A Succinct Account of the Late Difficulties in the Salisbury Corporation. A new director of the Salisbury mill had arbitrarily lengthened the working hours of the hands from ten to ten and a half hours a day. At a mass meeting and a town meeting which followed Whittier was active among the citizens expressing sympathy with the strikers and was probably in part the author of the protests then adopted and printed in the pamphlet. A letter written to "sympathetic strikers" discloses his view. He writes (in part) : "In my efforts against the great social and political wrong of the country , I have not overlooked more immediate evils. I have long been convinced that the term of daily labor in manufacturing companies should be abridged. I would prefer that it should be done by the voluntary action of owners and directors, but as this is scarcely to be hoped for, the legislature must provide a remedy." In American Literature, vol. 5 (November 1933) : 247-257, Arthur Christy follows up his earlier study, loc. cit. vol. 1 (January 1930) : 372392 , on "Orientalism in New England: Whittier" by a further article on "The Orientalism of Whittier." Though ¡Whittier's use of the Indie literature was not so philosophical as Emerson's, a surprising number of passages in his poems depend on his reading of translations. Mr. Christy picks out especially "Miriam," "The Preacher," and "The Over-Heart." Since the last two show dependence on the Bhagavad Gita there is much interest in a discovery made since Mr. Christy wrote. After the contents of Emerson's old study had been bodily transferred to the new fireproof building at Concord a workman found by accident a secret drawer in the old manse. Among the papers it contained was a letter from Whittier to Emerson which apparently tells the beginning of Whittier's acquaintance with the Gita. The letter is dated 12 mo. 12, NOTES ON BOOKS AND ARTICLES49 1852. After extending an invitation to Emerson to lecture at Amesbury at the Lyceum the poet continues: "I feel guilty in respect to the Bhagavad Gita, but it is too late to repent: & I will even keep it until I restore it to thee personally in exchange for Geo. Fox. It is a wonderful book and has greatly excited my curiosity to know more of the religious literature of the East." Evidently Emerson had lent Whittier a translation of the Gita, and reciprocally had borrowed the Journal (?) of George Fox. It was à fruitful and significant exchange. If the date of the letter has been rightly deciphered the edition through which Whittier first knew the Gita cannot be, as Christy supposes (p. 252), the translation of J. Cockburn Thomson (Hertford, 1855). A version of Sir Charles Wilkiris was available in the original edition of 1785 or later reprints. A very pleasing and intimate account of an interview with Whittier at the age of fifty-two, with an appreciation of his service as a hymn writer in spreading a more humane theology, is contributed by Professor John W. Buckham to the Congregational Quarterly (London) for January, 1935 (vol. xiii: 23-26) in an article...