Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/543

 COAXES KINNEY. Coaxes Kinney was born on the west bank of Crooked Lake — Keeuka in Indian — not far from Penn Yan, in Yates county, New York, November twenty-fourth, 1826. Without any aid from his parents, their gifted son has obtained a hberal education by his own exertions. Like most young men of talent in tlie West, Coates Kinney lias stood ready for any thing that might turn up. Accordingly, he has taught both in the common and high schools, edited papers, and practiced law, which is now his pro- fession. In the spring of 1840 he came to Springboro, Warren county, Ohio, where he spent the most of his later boyhood. He was married on the seventeenth of July, 1851, to Hanna Kelley of Waynesville, of the same county. The issue of their marriage was three children, two of which are deceased — the other is a motherless infant, Mrs. Kinney having died on the twenty-seventh day of April, 1860 — a few days after its birth — deeply lamented by a large circle of devoted friends. Coates Kinney is now thirty-three years of age, and the commencement of his lit- erary career dates back about ten years. Having been compelled to make his bread in uncongenial pursuits, his genius has been much encumbered. But iron necessity is often the most profitable disciplinarian, and its rugged requisitions have made the mightiest of earth's heroes. His poems consist of "Keeuka, an American Legend," and eighteen minor pieces, published in a volume of one hundred and sixty-one pages, in 1854, and a number of productions since given to the serial press. In estimating his merits as a poet, we shall not attempt to define or analyze the elements of poetry, nor undertake a theory which will especially adapt itself to his case. Suffice it to say, that poetry, like elo- quence, finds a response in the human soul, — an echo in the popular heart. This is the only unmistakable test of genuine merit in this field of literature. It will not do to institute a comparison between the modern and ancient sons of song, because two thousand years of change and progress, in human nature, have produced as marked effects in poetic genius as in any thing else. Another Iliad can never be produced, because the Homeric age can never recur. The generations now are developed after a model so different, that the demand for epics has ceased, and therefore no supply can be expected. The case is well stated by Neibuhr, the great German philosophi- cal historian, in the following language : "To rise in conciseness and vigor of style, is the highest that we moderns can attain ; for we cannot write from our whole soul ; and hence Ave cannot expect another great epic poem. The quicker beats the life pulse of the world, the more one is compelled to move in epicycles, the less can calm, mighty repose of the spirit be ours." How far, then, does Mr. Kinney meet this standard of excellence, "conciseness and (527)