[FIRESIDE POETS]. A group of 4 autograph letters signed, comprising:
ALS (“John G. Whittier”), 2pp., 12mo, dated 13 June 1878 to Mr. Holford, agreeing to sign a testimonial concerning Sir R. Roberts if it is already signed by Longfellow, Holmes, O’Reilly, Owen, and others. –– [And:] ALS (“John G. Whittier”), one page, 12mo, dated 21 May 1890 to an unknown recipient, acknowledging that, 30 years previously, Whittier wrote and published the poem he mentions, and that Mr. Hughes has no claim to it. –– [And:] ALS (“J.R. Lowell”), one page, 12mo, dated 9 June 1877 to “Mr. President”, with an early draft of his poem proposed for the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Boston. Reading in part: “I wrote this out of a wealth of smoke from my after–dinner pipe: To men (us) who died for her on land & sea, The she might have a country great and free, Boston rears this: build you’re their (our) monument, In lives like theirs (ours), at duty’s summons spent…” –– [And:] ALS (“J.R. Lowell”), 2pp. on bifolium, 12mo, to an unnamed recipient (likely Harvard President Charles William Eliot) discussing the dividing of his professorship as only be the professor of Belles Letters or Poetry and “Mr. Whitney” the professor of Philology and Modern Languages.