WHITE HORSE

wrote tragedies, elegies, comedies, farces, epistles, and all manner of other poems long quite forgotten, and deservedly. His poems were collected in 1754, and in 1774 in two volumes-a third volume, with a memoir by W. Mason, followed in 1788.

White Horse, the name applied to a figure of a horse on a hillside, formed by removing the turf so as to show the underlying chalk. Most of these figures are in Wiltshire, but Berkshire possesses the most famous of them all, that at Uffington, 4 miles SE. of Shrivenham. It measures 355 feet from nose to tail, and 120 from ear to heel; is traditionally supposed to commemorate Alfred the Great's victory of Ashdown (871); is mentioned about the reign of Henry II. as existing prior to 1084; and has been periodically scoured-fourteen times between 1755 and 1857, and then not till 1884. The next most famous White Horse, that on Bratton Hill, near Westbury, is likewise said to commemorate a victory of Alfred's, that of Ethandun (878). It originally measured 100 by 54 feet, but now is 175 by 107, having been recut in 1778 and 1853. Other White Horses are those of Cherhill (1780; 129 x 142 feet), Marlborough (1804; renewed 1873; 62 × 47 feet), Pewsey (1812; 180 × 167 feet), Broad Hinton (1835; 90 x 90 feet), and Wootton Bassett (1864; 86 × 61 feet). Yorkshire has two White Horses, both modern-on Roulston Hill, near Northwaite, and the Hambledon Hills, near Thirsk; and on Mormond Hill, Aberdeenshire, are both a White Horse (18th century; 162 × 126 feet) and a stag (1870; 240 feet long). At Tysoe, Warwickshire, is a Red Horse (1461; 54 x 31 feet); near Weymouth is an equestrian figure of George III.; and similar figures of seeming antiquity are the Giant (180 feet long) on Trendle Hill, near Cerne-Abbas, Dorsetshire; the Long Man (240 x 148 feet) at Wilmington, Sussex, reoutlined in 1874; and the Cross (230 × 340 feet) at Whiteleaf, Bucks.

See the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath, The White Horses of the West of England (1885; new ed. 1892); Chambers's Book of Days, vol. ii. p. 778; and T. Hughes's Scouring of the White Horse (1858).

White Lady, a spectral figure which, according to popular legend, appears in many of the castles of Germany, as at Berlin, Neuhaus in Bohemia, Ansbach, Baireuth, Kleve, Darmstadt, Altenburg, as also in London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and elsewhere, by night as well as by day, particularly when the death of any member of the family is imminent. She is regarded as the ancestress of the race, shows herself always in snow-white garments, carries a bunch of keys at her side, and sometimes rocks and watches over the children at night when their nurses sleep. The earliest historical instance of this apparition occurred in the 15th century, and is famous under the name of Bertha of Rosenberg (in Bohemia ). The White Lady of other princely castles was identified with Bertha, and this was accounted for by the intermarriages of other princely houses with members of the house of Rosenberg. In the Schloss of Berlin she was seen in 1598, 1619, 1667, 1688, and again in 1840, 1850, and 1879. The White Lady of Avenel, in Scott's Monastery, is an ineffective imitation. It was long a common belief in the Highlands that many of the chiefs had some kind spirit to watch over the fortunes of their house. Popular tradition has many well-known legends about white ladies, who generally dwell in forts and mountains as enchanted maidens waiting for deliverance. They delight to appear in warm sunshine to poor shepherds or herdboys. They are either combing their long hair, or washing themselves, drying wheat, beating flax, or spinning; they also point out treasures and beg for deliverance, offering as reward flowers, corn, or

chaff, which gifts turn in the instant into silver and gold. They wear snow-white, or half white half black garments, and yellow or green shoes. All these and many other traits that appear in individual legends may be traced back to a goddess of German mythology who influences birth and death and presides over the orderappellation White Lady and the name Bertha ing of the household. Still more distinctly the point back to the great goddess of nature, who appears under various names, and who, as Berhta the brilliant'), held her circuit on Twelfth-night and revealed her power. When the legend goes on to say that the Bohemian Bertha of the 15th century promised the workmen of Neuhaus a sweet soup on the completion of building the castle, and that this soup, along with carp, is still given in remembrance of it to the poor on Maundy Thursday, we may be permitted to recognise again the festival dishes consecrated to Berhta, such as fish, oatmeal gruel or dumplings, &c., which it is still customary to eat about the time of Twelfth-night and Christmas in most districts of Germany.

See Minutoli, Die Weisse Frau (Berl. 1850), and Schrammen, Die Schicksals- oder Totenfrau im Haus der Hohenzollern (Cologne, 1888).

White Lead. See LEAD.

White Leg (also called 'Milk-leg': technically phlegmasia dolens), an ailment of women, usually soon after parturition. There is swelling of the leg, hardness, whiteness of the skin, and thrombosis of the large veins.

He

Whitelocke, BULSTRODE, was born in London 2d August 1605, and educated at Eton, Merchant Taylors' School, and St John's College, Oxford. The son of a judge, he studied at the Middle Temple, sat in the Long Parliament for Great Marlow, and took a half-hearted part on the popular side in the great struggle. In 1648 he was appointed one of the commissioners of the Great Seal. would take no part in the king's trial, but he accepted a seat in the council of state, and was sent by Cromwell ambassador to Sweden (1653). He declined Cromwell's title of viscount, was nominated by Richard keeper of the Great Seal, but again steered prudently enough through that intricate period to be included in the Act of Oblivion. He died in 1675 at his house at Chilton in Wiltshire. Whitelocke's Memorials was first published in 1682 in a mutilated and falsified form, the anonymous editor, according to Wood, being Arthur, Earl of Annesley. A more satisfactory edition was that of 1732. The book is reliable, but Mr Gardiner thinks the earlier part to have been written from memory, and so defective with the inevitable defects of such a method. His Journal of the Embassy to Sweden was edited by H. Reeve (1855). See his Memoirs by R. H. Whitelocke (1860).

White Mountains, a group belonging to the Appalachians (q.v.), in New Hampshire (q.v.). Mount Washington has a practicable carriage-road and a hotel on its summit, with a powerful electric light.

White Pigments. The most important of these is white lead, which not only is very serviceable when used alone as a white colour, but in oilpainting most other colours are mixed with it to give them body. Commercial white lead is frequently mixed with sulphate of baryta (barium sulphate), but manufacturers of white lead object to this being called an adulteration, as the mixture is sold by them as such. Less common adulterations are Gypsum (q.v.), chalk, and china clay. Flake White is a pure white lead specially prepared for artists, and keeps its colour better than the kind commonly used by house-painters (see LEAD, and PIGMENTS). Zinc White, or oxide of zinc, is

not so much used for artistic work in oil as flake white, but in house-painting it is often coated over a ground of white lead, zinc white not being liable to change by the action of sulphuretted hydrogen. As an oil-colour it wants body, and is a bad dryer. As a water-colour, under the name of Chinese white, it is very useful and permanent. Baryta White, permanent white, is the sulphate of baryta, and is best when artificially prepared. This pigment does not change in impure air, but is not much in favour for oil-painting, except to mix for some purposes with white lead, as it renders it less liable to alter in tint. White pigments are numerous, but these three are by far the most important. White River rises in Arkansas, flows northeast into Missouri, then east, south-east, and south through Arkansas, and empties itself into the Mississippi near the mouth of the Arkansas. It is 800 miles long, and navigable 300 miles.

Whites. See LEUCORRHEA.

White Sea (Russian Bjeloje More), a branch of the Arctic Ocean extending into the provinces of Archangel in the north of Russia. About 100 miles wide between the Kaninskaia and Kola peninsulas, it narrows to less than 50 farther south, widens again and forms three gulfs, the Kandalak Gulf, that of Archangel, into which the Dwina falls, and that into which the Onega falls. The sea-route hither was discovered by Chancellor in 1553; Archangel (q.v.) is the chief emporium on its shores. It is usually frozen from the beginning of September till the end of May; and even during the other months, when navigation is possible, it is not free from floating ice, and heavy fogs are frequent. The area is about 50,000 sq. m. By canals connected with the Dwina, it has direct water communication with the Dnieper and the Volga, and so with the Black Sea and the Caspian. White Sulphur Springs, a watering-place of West Virginia, 227 miles by rail W. of Richmond. It was at one time the most popular summer-resort in the southern states, lies amid fine mountain scenery, and contains several large hotels.

White Swelling, a disease of the Joints (q.v.), in which the synovial membrane passes into pulpy degeneration.

Whitethroat (Sylvia cinerea), a bird of the family Sylviidæ, a summer visitant to the British Isles; plentiful during summer in the greater part of England and in Ireland, but rarer in the north of Scotland, where, however, it is also extending its range, breeding regularly as far north as the Dornoch Firth. It is also common during summer in the south and middle of Europe, and is found even in the north. It places its nest in a low bush, or among a tangled mass of brambles and weeds. Its food consists of insects, berries and other fruit. Its song is not very sweet, but is delivered with great energy, and it seems to vie with other birds in sing. ing, refusing to be outdone. It is very lively and amusing as a cage-bird, and very easily tamed. The whole length of the whitethroat is 5 inches. Its plumage is brown of various shades; the breast and belly brownish white, tinged with rose-colour in the

Whitethroat (Sylvia cinerea).

male. The Lesser Whitethroat (Sylvia curruca) is a species of much rarer occurrence, and less extensive in its distribution in the British Isles. Whitethroats belong to the same genus as the Blackcap (q.v.) and the Garden Warbler (S. hortensis), which is not uncommon in Britain, and almost rivals the blackcap in the richness of its notes, at the same time being apparently intolerant of rivalry, for it avoids the blackcap's haunts. White Vitriol. See ZINC.

consistency of milk by means of water. It is used Whitewash, slaked quicklime, reduced to the for colouring walls, and as a disinfectant. If merely for colouring, a little size is added, but not when used for sanitary purposes.

Whitgift, JOHN, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born a merchant's son at Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, in 1530 or 1533. He was brought up at Wellow Abbey, near Grimsby, where his uncle was abbot, and at St Anthony's School in London, and in 1549 entered Queen's College, Cambridge, but migrated next year to Pembroke Hall. In 1555 he was elected a fellow of Peterhouse, and, protected by its master during the Marian persecu tion, took orders in 1560, and from the Bishop of Ely, to whom he was chaplain, received the Cambridgeshire rectory of Teversham. He became successively Lady Margaret professor of Divinity (1663), Master of Pembroke, a queen's chaplain, a D.D., regius professor of Divinity, and Master of Trinity (1567), Dean of Lincoln (1571), Bishop of Worcester (1577), Archbishop of Canterbury (1583), and a privy-councillor (1586). Several of these offices he held conjointly, for he was a great pluralist. Having attended Queen Elizabeth in her last moments, and crowned James I., he died at Lambeth, 29th February 1604, and was buried at Croydon, where in 1596 he had founded an almshouse.

With a decided Calvinistic bias, Whitgift yet was a steadfast champion of conformity, and in his controversy with Thomas Cartwright (q.v.) is held to have vindicated the Anglican position against the Puritans with no less ability than Jewell showed in defending it against the Romanists. Stow, Camden, Wotton, and Fuller concur in their praise of Whitgift, and it was reserved for Macaulay to stigmatise him as a sycophant and oppressor.' His works were edited for the Parker Society by the Rev. John Ayre (3 vols. 1851-53).

See vol. ii. of Cooper's Athena Cantabrigienses (1861) for a bibliography of his ninety-four writings and for a long list of authorities, to which may be added vol. v. of Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (1875).

Whithorn, a royal burgh in Wigtownshire, 31 miles NW. of the Isle of Whithorn, 12 miles S. of Wigtown by rail. Pop. (1851) 1652; (1891) 1403. Ptolemy makes mention of the place as Leukopibia, a town of the Novantæ-the name most likely synonymous with the Latin Candida Casa, the Old English Hwit-aern. Here at any rate St Ninian (q.v.) founded Candida Casa or church of Whithorn, dedicating it to St Martin, who had just died (397), and here he was buried in 432. From this place the monastery of Rosnat spread the light far and wide, and here a bishopric was founded by the Angles in 727, which was, however, removed in 796. At length under David I. Fergus, lord of Galloway, re-established the see of Galloway, founding here also a Premonstratensian priory, whose church became the cathedral. In early times pilgrimages were made hither from all parts of Scotland; James IV. came at least once a year, and we find Margaret, queen of James III., visiting it in 1473, and James V. in 1532 and 1533. Here in 1514 died the aged Earl of Angus, Bell-the-Cat.' There remains now only a mere, roofless, ivy-grown ruin.

border of the ventral and dorsal fins. The posterior edge of the tail is straight or but slightly emarginate, the depth of the body moderate; the anus is situated beneath the middle of the dorsal fin. As in all species of Gadus there are three dorsal fins and two ventral. The scales are small. The range of the whiting is the European coast from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. It is abundant on British coasts, especially on the south and west coasts of England and Ireland, comparatively rare on the northern coasts of Scotland. It has been recorded as large as 16 inches in length and 3 to 4 lb. in weight, and some specimens are said to have reached 8 lb., but the usual size is about 1 or 2 lb. It is a voracious fish, feeding both on the bottom on crustacea and in midwater on small fish, such as sprats, young pilchards, &c. It also feeds on molluscs and worms, but to a less extent. It is caught both by the trawl and by hand-lines, and in Scotland also by long-lines. In Scotland mussels are chiefly used as bait; in England, pilchard, squid, herring, or mackerel.

The whiting breeds in spring, from March to May; the eggs, as in other Gadidæ, are transparent and buoyant and dispersed separately in the water. It is in high esteem for the table, and is regarded as particularly delicate and easy of digestion. The flesh is of a pearly whiteness, whence the English name. It very soon suffers change, however, and is in good condition only a short time after being caught; but great numbers of small whitings are sent to market, salted and dried, under various names.

Whiting is simply chalk ground and washed to separate impurities. It is extensively used as a size-colour, for cleaning silver and other metals, as well as glass, and in preparing frames for gilding; and (in milk) may be used as an antidote to poisoning by oxalic acid. It is often mixed with white lead as an adulterant.

Whitlow, or PARONYCHIA, is a painful inflammatory affection of the fingers, almost always proceeding to suppuration. There are several varieties of this affection, according to the texture primarily attacked; thus, it may be situated in the skin, the cellular (or connective) tissue beneath the skin or under the nail, the tendons or tendin ous sheaths running along the fingers, or the periosteum. If the skin be the seat of inflammation vesicles appear, which soon discharge pus, after which relief is rapidly afforded. Such cases require little care or attention, and give rise to hardly any constitutional disturbance. If the cellular tissue be the primary seat of inflammation there is a painful sensation of tenseness and throbbing of the part,

and often considerable febrile disturbance, until the pus can be evacuated. Although this form is painful no serious mischief is to be apprehended. When, however, the tendons and their sheaths, or the periosteum, are affected, a much more serious form of whitlow is developed, which has been already discussed in the article TENDON. In this form the suppuration may extend up the arm and occasion destruction of the joints, and even death.

Whitlow may originate either spontaneously or after an external injury, such as a prick from a needle, thorn, &c. In the treatment of the milder forms the finger or thumb should be held for half an hour or longer in water as hot as can be borne, or enveloped in an antiseptic poultice. When matter shows itself, an incision should be made to admit of its escape. Even if suppuration has not taken place, a free incision into the inflamed part often gives great relief, and much limits the extension of the inflammation.

Whitman, WALT, the unique poetic celebrant of Democracy, the Pindaric laudator of the 'average man,' was born, of mingled English and Dutch stock, on 31st May 1819, at West Hills, Long Island, in New York state, and died on 27th March 1892. Like many another man of genius Whitman seems to have owed little to his formal education, as he left school at the age of twelve to serve first in a lawyer's and then in a doctor's office, and finally in a printer's as an apprentice or learner. But that he profited by such schooling as he had (in the public schools of New York state) is shown by the fact that his next employment was that of itinerant teacher in country schools. He returned shortly to his printing, with spells of summer holiday and even farm-work, and in 1846 became editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. This and his other numerous press engagements were only of short duration, a certain restlessness, love of wandering, and eagerness for fresh experiences making him pass rapidly from one post or employment to another. He even built and sold houses at one time, and was in serious peril of growing wealthy on the proceeds, a peril he was zealous and successful in avoiding. All along haunted by the yearning and sense of obligation to produce a life-work, Whitman seemed quite unable to find full and free expressions for his emotions and thoughts until he hit upon the curious, irregular, recitative measures in which he composed the Leaves of Grass. When first issued in 1855 this unique publication was but a small quarto of 94 pages, but it grew in the course of the seven succeeding editions till it contained nearly 400 pages.

The later and complete editions, taken together with his prose book Specimen Days and Collect, may be held to embrace the life-work of Whitman as a writer. But Whitman least of all men was content with an idle and remote spectatorship of life; he was ever bold and determined to face and grapple with life's saddest and sternest realities, to put the full strength of his shoulder to the burden of his fellows. Thus it came that summoned to tend his own brother, wounded in the war against the South, he became the brothernurse to every wounded or sick mother's son in the Northern army. Not Florence Nightingale's self could be more tender and more beloved than the stalwart, bearded Walt, passing like a broad sunbeam from bedside to bedside in the long hospital wards, with cheery words and helpful offices to the living and last hand-clasp and brotherly kiss to dying comrades. The exertion, the exposure, and the high nervous and emotional strain Whitman underwent in these few years left him a shattered and almost aged man. About the close of the war he received (the magnificent reward of devotion and genius) a subordinate clerkship under government, and was summarily dismissed by Secretary

Harlan as the author of an indecent book;' though he fortunately obtained a similar post almost immediately. In 1874 he left Washington for Camden, New Jersey, where he lived till his death. Partially paralysed as he now was, Whitman was in no small danger of falling into absolute poverty, had it not been for the timely help of his admirers beyond the Atlantic, a movement in which Tennyson, Carlyle, and Ruskin and other leading authors took generous and active part. Later on several wealthy American citizens honoured themselves and their country by liberally providing for the aged poet's simple wants.

even

All the auspices seem in favour of Whitman's immortality: the neglect of his own countrymen, tempered only by ridicule, abuse, and persecution; the recognition by a few of the leading minds of Europe and America; his slow emergence into acceptance and appreciation if not into popularity; all these seem auguries of a true man of genius. Although Whitman, like Carlyle and Browning, may be a dangerous and dangerously easy model for disciples to imitate, he undoubtedly worked out for himself a style of distinction as notable as theirs. This in itself is

a title to fame, or at least a charm against oblivion, even though his style, like that of Lyly, runs to extremes and vices. This style or form is a sort of rhythmic recitative or irregular chant, the precursors of which may be found in the English translation of the Psalms and other Biblical poems, in Macpherson's Ossian, and in the later poems of William Blake. These chants vary in movement, and seem governed by laws rhythmic rather than metric, which (like the grammar of an unwritten tongue) have never been formulated even by the inventor himself. They have a peculiar, wild, stirring charm, which is apt to make regular verses seem tame and insipid after them. As to subject, Whitman set himself the Atlantean task of uplifting into the sphere or dominion of poetry the whole of modern life and man, omitting nothing, concealing nothing. Like Wordsworth, he would sing 'man as man,' only with a far wider and bolder sweep of subject and greater daring of treatment. His thesis is that of St Peter's vision; there is nothing common or unclean.' Hence the logical necessity with Whitman to include the treatment of subjects which in modern society were tabooed as obscene and unmentionable; hence too the accusations of indecency, so just and pertinent from the accuser's point of view, so futile and irrelevant from that of the accused. Whitman is in fact an ideal ist who has bound himself by a solemn vow to be a thorough-going realist; and it is his resolute and often successful endeavour to secure this union that

But so

gives his work its exceptional artistic quality. He is a prince of impressionists in literature. high and hard is the task Whitman sets himself that it is no matter of surprise that he sometimes, if not often, fails, and from heights where he was approaching the sublime falls perilously near the ridiculous. It is the fate of all artists who strive for the highest things that their failures-often only apparent-are more easily detected than their solid achievements; hence the contumely and ridicule that a Turner or a Wordsworth, Keats, or Landor, or Shelley suffers at the hands of a clever but uninitiated criticism. So largely with Whitman; but it is better to approach him in the same spirit that he has shown toward man and nature, that of for ever seeking for what is great and good, while outfacing steadily and bravely every stern and refractory reality.

Whitman's Leaves of Grass fell still-born from the press, but in England, of some copies sold in 1865 by a book-pedlar at Sunderland, one was given to W. Bell Scott, who in turn sent one to W. M. Rossetti (see

Athenæum for 9th April 1892). A selection from Whitman was published by Mr Rossetti in 1868 (new ed. See W. D. 1886); another in 1886 by E. Rhys. O'Connor, The Good Grey Poet-a name by which Whitman liked to be called-(1866); Burroughs, Notes on and W. Clarke (1892). Whitman (1866); and monographs by Dr Bucke (1885)

Whitney, ELI, American inventor, was born at Westborough, Massachusetts, December 8, 1765, and was educated at Yale College, where he paid his expenses partly by school-teaching, partly by mechanical labour. Having graduated in 1792, he went to Georgia as a teacher, but finding a generous patron in the widow of General Greene, of the Revolutionary army, he resided on her estate and

studied law.

The cotton culture at this period, especially that of the best kind, the 'green seed,' was limited by the slow and difficult work of separ ating the cotton from the seed by hand. Whitney set to work to remedy this under great disadvan tages, for he had to make his own tools; but the reports of his success prompted some lawless people to break into his workshop and steal his machine, and get others made before he could secure a patent. He, however, formed a partnership with one Miller in 1793, and went to Connecticut to manufacture cotton gins; but the lawsuits in defence of his rights carried off all his profits and $50,000 voted him by the state of South Carolina. Finally in 1798 he got a government contract for the manufacture of firearms, and was the first to effect the division of labour by which each part was made separately. He made a fortune by this manufacture, carried out with ingenious machinery at Whitneyville, Connecticut; while he had but barren honour from the gin, one of the most important of the whole series of inventions connected with the cotton manufacture. He died at

New Haven, January 8, 1825. See COTTON, p. 510.

Whitney, JOSIAH DWIGHT, geologist, was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, 23d November 1819, graduated at Yale in 1839, and the year after joined the survey of New Hampshire. The years 1842-47 he spent in study in Europe, returning to explore, together with J. W. Foster, the Lake Superior region. Their Synopsis of the explorations was published in 1849; their Report on the geology, 1850-51. Whitney next spent two years travelling in the states east of the Mississippi, of which the fruit was The Metallic Wealth of the United States (1854). Appointed state chemist and professor in the Iowa state university in 1855, together with James Hall, he issued the Reports on its geological survey (1858-59); and in 1858-60 took part in the survey of the lead region of the upper Missouri, publishing, again with Hall, his Report (1862). He was appointed state geologist of California in 1860, and laboured on the survey of that state till 1874, publishing in six volumes his Geological Survey of California (1864-70). In 1865 he was appointed to the chair of Geology at Harvard, received the LL.D. degree from Yale in 1870, and has had the honour of giving his name to the highest mountain in the United States. His Yosemite Guidebook was published at San Francisco in 1869.-His brother, WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY, philologist, was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, 9th February 1827, graduated at Williams in 1845, and was three years thereafter clerk in a bank, studying Sanskrit the while. In 1849-50 he studied at Yale, then went to Germany, studying at Berlin under Bopp and Weber, and at Tübingen under Roth, with whom he prepared an edition of the Atharva Veda Sanhita (Berlin, 1856). In 1854 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit at Yale, in 1870 also of Comparative Philology. He received the degrees of Ph.D. from Breslau (1861), LL.D. from Williams (1868), Harvard (1876), St

WHITNEY

Andrews (1874), Edinburgh (1892), and Litt. D. from Columbia (1886). A member of the American Oriental Society from 1849, he was its librarian (1855-73), its corresponding secretary (1857-84), and since then its president. His contributions to its Journal have been no less numerous than important, including a translation of the Surya Siddhanta (1860); text with notes of the Atharva Veda Prâtiçakhya (1862); the text with notes of the Taittiriya Prâtiçûkhya (1871), which was awarded the Bopp prize by the Berlin Academy as the most important Sanskrit publication of the preceding three years; and the Index Verborum to the Atharva Veda (1881). He contributed also to the great Sanskrit dictionary of Böhtlingk and Roth (7 vols. St Petersburg, 1853-67). Professor Whitney is undoubtedly one of the foremost Sanskrit scholars of the day, and his eminence has been recognised by his rank as a correspondent of the Berlin, Turin, Rome, and St Petersburg academies, the Institute of France, and as a foreign knight of the Prussian order Pour le Mérite.' As a scientific philologist he belongs to the school that ascribes the development of speech to the acceptance of conventional signs, its origin imitative rather than an intuitive concomitant of thought. He has waged warfare with Max-Müller on fundamental questions of the science of language, and those interested in such controversies will find the European scholar's onslaught on Whitney at length in the fourth volume of his Chips from a German Workshop (1875).

Other works of Whitney's are On Material and Form in Language (1872); Darwinism and Language (1874); Logical Consistency in Views of Language (1880); Mixture in Language (1881); compendious German Grammar (1869), Reader (1870), and Dictionary (1877); Oriental and Linguistic Studies (1873-75); Life and Growth of Language, in International Science Series (1876); Essentials of English Grammar (1877); Sanskrit Grammar (1879); Practical French Grammar (1886). He was also editor-in-chief of the great Century Dictionary

(6 vols. New York, 1889-91).

Whitney, MOUNT, the highest mountain of the United States outside of Alaska, is in the Sierra Nevada in southern California, and has a height of

14,898 feet.

Whitsunday. See PENTECOST. In Scotland it is one of the usual Terms (q.v.) for regulating the letting of houses and farms-its connection with the Sunday of Whitsuntide or with any Sunday having wholly passed from the popular consciousness. It was formerly movable, but was fixed in 1690 to mean the 15th May. In many respects local usage used to overrule the statute. Thus,

in Edinburgh, the term of entry to a house was the 25th May until 1881, when by an act for Scotland it was declared to be the 28th; but rents are payable on the 15th.

Whittier, JOHN GREENLEAF, the sweet American 'Quaker poet' and sturdy abolitionist, was born near Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the 17th December 1807, belonging thus to the same golden decade that gave Emerson and Longfellow to America, Tennyson and the Brownings to England. The son of a poor farmer, who was also shoemaker, young Whittier obtained his formal education only with that struggle which seems so much better to foster genius than the possession of all the advantages, as they are called. While the bodily frame that so well served him till his peaceful decease on the

7th of September of 1892 was developed and hardened by his healthy, if arduous, outdoor life, his observation was roused and quickened, his imagination fired and coloured by the shining pages of nature's volume spread out continually before him. He wandered the New England meadows with the voices of Burns and Wordsworth for ever in his ears. He had, too, a notable schoolmaster in Joseph Coffin, an enthusi astic collector of all local legends and antiquities, thus adding to wild nature the weirder interest of strange, dark, and thrilling human deeds and dread-born superstitions. For his technical education, for better or worse, Whittier was apprenticed to journalism, beginning with contributions to the Poet's Corner' and as early as 1829 undertaking the editorship of the American Manufacturer, and in 1830 that of the New England Weekly Review, published at Hartford, Connecticut. His next move was a return to his native town to a similar post on the Haverhill Gazette in 1832, after having published in the previous year Legends of New England and Moll Pitcher. Long before this his poetry had attracted the admiration of William Lloyd Garrison, the champion of Abolition,' who rode over from Newburyport to see Whittier when quite a lad, and became his life-long friend. So it fell out that, if Garrison may be called the preacher or prophet, Whittier must be wreathed the poet-laureate of abolition (even though Emerson has touched the subject with more puissant pen). Thenceforward, whether with the bright flashing blade of his noble poetic rhetoric or the sounding quarter-staff of his earnest and manly prose, he fought the long, hot, dangerous battle of emancipation through contempt and defeat to lasting and complete victory. Apart from this strenuous and heroic struggle there is nothing epoch-making in Whittier's life literary or personal. In 1840 he settled in the quiet of Amesbury, a village near his birthplace.

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Of Whittier's collected prose works it may be said generally that the historical interest is stronger than the literary; for his prose never rises to the high levels of his poetry, and its main interest lies in the fact that in it we have the work, we may almost say the life-work, of a very earnest and excellent man. The contents of these volumes consist chiefly of articles which have long since served their purpose; and as permanent contributions to literature they lack the masterly style which has in some instances rendered inmortal

what would otherwise be of but transient interest. Beyond the Atlantic the name abolitionist has never probably obtained the credit that was due to it, mainly because it was hard for an Englishman to realise the high moral and physical courage which the man or the woman must have who passed by that name, not in the slave states merely, but in the North itself, fated though the North was to fight and bleed and conquer in that very cause.

Whittier's claim to immortality lies clearly in his poetry, and there in very small bulk. His anti-slavery poems have for the most part served their purpose, and with some few exceptions, such as the pathetic and spirited 'Slaves of Martinique,' can hardly be of enduring interest. His nature poetry is faithful, fresh, and beautiful, without being quite original, and his ballads of moral heroism, Barclay of Ury' and 'Barbara Frietchie,' if a little wanting in pith and sustained force, rank high among poems of that class; but it is when he soars into the spiritual and even mystic spheres, as in My Psalm,' that, rising lark-like, his notes come clearest, sweetest, and truest. At lower levels his note is often less certain or even is often ill-sustained. Concerned rather with the feelings and thoughts (neither of them very