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Minor New York Poets 47 nature; it rarely sings freely, and, if it never offends, also never stirs deeply. At a public meeting in his memory, his friend William Winter expressed Stedman's literary faith in a compact phrase when he said: "He steadfastly adhered to the stately, lovely, ancient traditions of English poetry." Undidactic, de- voted to the dignity and beauty of letters, he expressed him- self in the idiom of the tradition of beauty in Hterature, both classical and modem. His protracted studies in Theocritus and the other early idyllists were typical of his scholarly love of literature. He himself is the Pan in Wall Street of one of his few fascinating poems : among the bulls and bears he too held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned Like those of old), and upon it he could sing arrestingly if not greatly.' Though subordinate in genius to the greater New Eng- landers, — Emerson, Lowell, Whittier, and the rest, — the poets of the New York school made a positive contribution to our literature. Aside from the intrinsic merit of their work, they are important on account of their influence. Holding that poetry is amply justified through its beauty and the happiness produced in us by its beauty, and that the moral element is ancillary, if not accidental or irrelevant, they prepared the way for the highly accomplished versecraft that is characteristic of the decUning years of the century. Whether this highly accom- plished, often precious, poetry is itself admirable is scarcely open to question: it is not great, but it provided a disciphne that American poets had never had and that they needed. Of the lesser luminaries in New York little need be said. They include WiUiam Winter (1836-19 17), who early came from Massachusetts, primarily a dramatic critic == but also the author of verses resembling those of his poet friends: Emma Lazarus (1849-87), bom in New York of Portuguese Jewish ancestry, some of whose work is remarkable for its Hebraic intensity 3; and the Gary sisters, Alice (1820-71) and Phoebe (1824-71), who came from Ohio, importing the sentimental and moraHzing tendency of the age along with a sweetness and beauty by virtue of which they still have some charm. Two ' For his prose see Book III, Chap. xiii. ^ See Book III, Chap. xiii. ' See Book III, Chap. xiii.