Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/121

 VII

WHITTIER

T would be unjust to consider Whittier's genius from an academic point of view. British lovers of poetry,—except John Bright and others of like faith or spirit,—have been slow to comprehend his distinctive rank. As a poet he was essentially a balladist, with the faults of his qualities; and his ballads, in their freedom, naïvetée, even in their undue length, are among our few modern examples of unsophisticated verse. He returned again and again to their production, seldom laboring on sonnets and lyrics of the Victorian mould. His ear for melody was inferior to his sense of time, but that his over-facility and structural defects were due less to lack of taste than to early habit, Georgian models, disassociation from the schools, is indicated by his work as a writer of prose. In Margaret Smith's Journal an artistic, though suppositive, Colonial style is well maintained. Whittier became very sensible of his shortcomings; and, when at leisure to devote himself to his art, he greatly bettered it, giving much of his later verse all the polish that it required. In extended composition, [107]