WHIPPLE, Edwin Percy, American author and critic: b. Gloucester, Mass., 8 March 1819; d. Boston, 16 June 1886. After a sec ondary education, he began writing for news papers, in 1837 became a clerk in a Boston brokerage office and from 1837 to 1860 was superintendent of the reading-room of the Mer chants' Exchange. In 1843 he first attracted attention by a critical panegyric on Macaulay in the Boston Miscellany, and in October of that year entered upon his successful career as a lecturer, chiefly on literary topics. He con tributed much to reviews and journals, pub lishing in 1848-49 two volumes of 'Essays and Reviews,' including discussions of 'English Poets of the 19th Century,' 'Byron,' 'Rufus Choate' and 'Henry Fielding.> In 1872-73 he was literary editor of the Boston Globe, a newly-established daily. The greater part of his work is composed of essays on literature and authors, though he treated of other sub jects with an almost equal discrimination. His 'Literature of the Age of Elizabeth' (IK'61 probably shows him to best advantage, though his estimates of the moderns are also pains taking and for the most part just. His char
acterizations were penetrative, and at times very effectively expressed. He lacked, however, to a large extent, originality and power, and Whit tier's declaration that 'with the possible ex ception of Lowell and Matthew Arnold, he was the ablest critical essayist of his time` cannot now be accepted. Among his further publi cations are 'Literature and Life' (1819), a small volume of lectures; 'Character and Char acteristic Men' (1866) ; 'Success and its Con ditions' (1871). Three books appeared post humously, 'Recollections of Eminent Men, with Other Papers> (1887), with an introduction by C. A. Bartol; 'American Literature and Other Papers' (l:.:7), with a brief introduction by Whittier, and containing the centennial review of American literature written in 1876 for Harper's Magazine; and Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics Consult pa pers by T. W. Higginson in the Atlantic. Vol. lviii. 345, and by T. W. Hunt in the 'Bibbo theca Sacra,' 1..30.