Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, one of the most popular of modern poets, born in Portland, Maine, Feb. 27, 1807, is a son of the late Hon. Stephen Longfellow, and a descendant of William Longfellow, of Newbury, Massachusetts. This gentleman--the first of the name who came to America--was born in Hampshire, England, in 1651, emigrated to Newbury, Massachusetts, where, in 1676, he married Anne Sewall, and was drowned at Anticosti, a large desert island of Canada East, in the estuary of the St. Lawrence, in 1690. (See Joshua Coffin's Sketch of the History of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury, from 1635 to 1844, Bost., S. Drake, 1845, 8vo, plates.) On the mother's side he is a descendant of John Alden, who came over in the Mayflower, and who was the first man that landed at Plymouth. He entered Bowdoin College in 1821, and graduated in 1825, after which he devoted himself for a short time to the study of the law. Having received the appointment of Professor of Modern Languages in his alma mater, he went abroad in 1826, for the purpose of enlarging his opportunities of studious application, and spent three years and a half in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, and England. In 1829 he assumed the duties of his office, and two years later became a married man. In 1835, by the resignation of George Ticknor, (the distinguished author of the History of Spanish Literature,) a vacancy occurred in the faculty of Harvard College, and Mr. Longfellow was elected Professor of Belles-Lettres. A second trip to Europe was the consequence of this new appointment, and the pilgrim-scholar again enjoyed the opportunity of gratifying his thirst for the choicest productions of Continental literature among the scenes--and, in some cases, amidst the associations--to which they owed their birth. The summer of 1835 was passed in Denmark and Sweden, the autumn and winter in Holland and Germany, and the ensuing spring and summer in the Tyrol and Switzerland. Whilst residing in Rotterdam, a melancholy event occurred in Mr. Longfellow's family history, which has invested that ancient city with an undying interest in his memory. The companion of his wanderings was suddenly summoned to other and eternal scenes, and he returned home a widower. In 1842 he again visited France, Germany, and England, passing the summer at Boppard on the Rhine. In 1843 he was again married. After holding his professorship in Harvard College for about twenty years, Mr. Longfellow retired in 1854 to the undisturbed enjoyment of literary leisure; and, as he has since that period given to the world the most famous of his poetical compositions, (Hiawatha, published in 1855,) we are encouraged to hope that what Harvard University has lost by his temporary withdrawal the world at large will gain by his retirement,--the autumn fruitage of a mind eminent for the fragrance and luxuriance of its early blossoms, and whose golden summer has not "unbeseem'd the promise of its spring." Mr. Longfellow has resided since 1837 in the "Craigie House," Cambridge, the head-quarters of General Washington after the battle of Bunker Hill, and since distinguished as the temporary residence of Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, and several others of the scholars whose profound and varied acquisitions have made the city of Boston "a name and a praise" alike in the cloisters of Oxford and in the rude hut of the backwoodsman of the Western wilds. The history of "Craigie House" has been so admirably written by Mr. George William Curtis, in his biographical sketch of Longfellow in the Homes of American Authors, that we trust all admirers of the author of the Golden Legend (and their name is Legion,) will not rest until they have made themselves familiar with this charming narration. 

Mr. Longfellow first sought the road to public honours by pursuing the beaten path, time out of mind the highway of trembling and unconfirmed authorship, -- contribution to the literary periodicals, which on every side tempt unfledged genius to make the first essay of its pinions on the uncertain atmosphere of popular appreciation. We have spoken of the "early blossoms" of Longfellow's genius,--the promise of its "spring;" and no one will quarrel with the phrase who remembers that the seven Earlier Poems, included between pages 20 and 23 of the first vol. of the last collective ed. of the author's Poetical Works, (Boston, 1857,) were all written before the poet was nineteen years of age. The titles of these are as follows: I. An April Day. II. Autumn. III. Woods in Winter. IV. Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem. V. Sunrise on the Hills. VI. The Spirit of Poetry. VII. Burial of the Minnisink. Many of his juvenile poems were originally published in the United Literary Gazette, a Boston Magazine; and at a later day, when success had increased his confidence in his own powers, he contributed a number of admirable papers to the North American Review, -- that priceless repository of so many of the best thoughts of the best minds of the most highly-educated portion of the American Republic. Among these papers of our young author may be noticed the Essay on Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesy; and one on the Moral and Devotional Poetry of Spain, which first introduced to the public the reviewer's translation of Don Jorge Manrique's sublime Ode on the death of his father. Having thus seen Mr. Longfellow fairly committed to a literary career, and abundantly encouraged by critical judgment and popular favour to pursue that career with the brightest hopes of merited distinction, it is now proper that we should proceed to present a list of the volumes of prose and poetry which he has from time to time given to the world, accompanied with quotations from the opinions of eminent authorities respecting the merits of these publications.

l. COPLAS DE DON JORGE MANRIQUE. Translated from the Spanish, with an Introductory Essay on the Moral and Devotional Poetry of Spain, Bost., 1833 12mo.
"Professor Longfellow's version is well calculated to give the English reader a correct notion of the Castilian bard, and of course a very exaggerated one of the literary culture of the age."--Prescott's Hist. of the Reign of Ferd. and Isabella, 11th ed., Bost., 1856, ii. 231, n.; and see the text. 
"The beautiful version of Mr. Longfellow."--Ticknor's Hist. of Spanish Lit., 2d ed., 1854, N. York, i. 19, n. And see p.32, n.; 408, n. 
"Mr. Longfellow's version is much superior to Dr. Bowring's both in elegance and fidelity."--N. Amer. Rev., l. 269. 
We commend the following to the attention of the reader: 

Las Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique. Con una glossa muy devota y Christiana de un religioso de la Cartuxa. Va juntamente un caso memorable de la conversion de una Dama, Madrid, 1598.--Coplas de Mingo Revulgo. Glossadas por Hernando Pulgar, Madrid, 1598. Cartas en refranes de Blasco de Garay Racionero de la Santa Yglesia de Toledo. 3 parts in one vol. oblong 12mo, Madrid, Luis Sanchez, 1598. Edition très-rare, inconnue à M. Brune--Salua.
 

2. OUTRE-MER: A PILGRIMAGE BEYOND THE SEA, N. York, 1835, 2 vols. Sale to April, 1857, 7,500 copies.

"Snelling writes well in his way. He cannot help doing so. He appears to us a man of a truculent genius desperately ill-disciplined. What a contrast to Longfellow! This writer--not unknown here as the author of Outre-Mer--comes nearer to a literary character than most of his associates. [In the Boston Book.] A professor of modern tongues in Harvard University, it is said; not of unknown tongues, we presume, though we were just about to call him an Irvingite. We speak in the literary acceptation, not theological. We cannot say that he imitates the author of the Sketch-Book: he has a spirit of his own. But it seems to us that his mind is much of the same description. He is sprightly, and witty, and graphic: he has seen much of the world, and used his opportunities well. There is an elegant ease in his style,--finished, but not finical; just the thing,--as we say of a private gentleman whose manners and dress excite no other remark, while they satisfy all who observe them. And, withal, he has the genial bonhommie of Irving. He sees the pleasant side of things. He likes that his reader should be innocently pleased, and is content if he be so. If Longfellow, in a word, had come before Irving, his fame would be that of a founder of a school (so far as America is concerned) rather than of one of the scholars. As it is, he may be popular, but not famous; and he will hardly have credit even for what he is worth."--Lon Athenæum, 1838,389; Review of the Boston Book, edited by B. B. Thatcher, Bost., 1837, 12mo. 

3. HYPERION; A ROMANCE, N. York, 1839, 2 vols. 12mo. Sale to April, 1857, 14,550 copies.

"The production of a man of taste, refinement, and feeling: in truth, a pure poem."--Oakley's ed. of Kent and King's Outlines of a Course of English Reading, N. York, 1853, 108. 

4. VOICES OF THE NIGHT, Cambridge, Mass., 1839, l6mo. Sale to April, 1857, 43,000 copies. The title Voices of the Night is applied to eight poems, most of which were originally pub. in The New York Knickerbocker, viz.: I. Hymn to the Night. II. A Psalm of Life. III. The Reaper and the Flowers. IV. The Light of Stars. V. Footsteps of Angels. VI. Flowers. VII. The Beleaguered City. VIII. Midnight Mass for the Dying Year. But this vol. contains, in addition to the Voices of the Night, a number of the author's early poems and some translations from modern languages. From a notice of this vol. in the North American Review for Jan. 1840 (l. 266-269) we quote the following lines:

"The poetry of Mr. Longfellow is marked by a very vivid imagination, great susceptibility to the impressions of natural scenery, and a ready perception of the analogies between natural objects and the feelings of the human heart. But, besides this he possesses an extraordinary command over the powers of language, and turns it to any form at will,-- 

'Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony."'

5. BALLADS, AND OTHER POEMS, Camb., Mass., 1841 16mo. Sale to April, 1857, 40,000 copies.

Mr. Poe, in a review of this volume in his Literati, finds fault with Mr. Longfellow for what most critics have deemed worthy of high commendation: 

"He regards the inculcation of a moral as essential.... In common with all who claim the sacred title of poet, he should limit his endeavours to the creation of novel moods of beauty, in form, in colour, in sound, in sentiment; for over all this wide range has the poetry of words dominion. To what the world terms prose may be safely and properly left all else. The artist who doubts of this thesis may always resolve his doubt by the single question, 'Might not this matter be as well or better handled in prose?' If it may, then it is no subject for the Muse. In the general acceptation of the term Beauty we are content to rest,--being careful only to suggest that, in our peculiar views, it must be understood as inclusive of the sublime. Of the pieces which constitute the present volume there are not more than one or two thoroughly fulfilling the ideas we have proposed, although the volume, as a whole, is by no means so chargeable with didacticism as Mr. Longfellow's previous book, [Voices of the Night.] We would mention, as poems nearly true, The Village Blacksmith, The Wreck of the Hesperus, and especially The Skeleton in Armour." 

It is impossible to avoid the reflection that, if the "inculcation of a moral" be sufficient to invalidate any claim to the title of a poet, the world has been greatly mistaken in their estimate of Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, Tasso,-- and, indeed, almost all of the greatest of those whom we have heretofore ignorantly reverenced as true poets.
 

7. THE SPANISH STUDENT, A PLAY, 1843, 12mo. Sale to April, 1857, 38,000 copies.

"TheSpanish Student is a spirited composition, well conceived, and abounding in pretty passages. The first part of the first scene embodies an excellent satire on many of the insipid comedies of the present time; and the frequent erudite allusion to Spanish songs, fables, and authors which are made throughout its pages furnish abundant evidence of the author's great familiarity with Spanish literature. The plot is interesting, and many of the incidents show much ingenuity; but it is not adapted to the stage being deficient in many of the essential requisites to make it palatable as an acting drama."--Irish Quar. Rev. June, 1855. 202. 

"Upon the whole, we regret that Professor Longfellow has written this work, and feel especially vexed that he has committed himself by its republication. Only when regarded as a mere poem can it be said to have merit of any kind. For, in fact, it is only when we separate the poem from the drama that the passages we have commended as beautiful can be understood to have beauty. We are not sure, indeed, that a 'dramatic poem' is not a flat contradiction in terms. At all events, a man of true genius (and such Mr. L. unquestionably is) has no business with these hybrid and paradoxical compositions. Let a poem be a poem only; let a play be a play and nothing more. As for The Spanish Student, its thesis is unoriginal, its incidents are antique; its plot is no plot; its characters have no character: in short, it is little better than a play upon words to style it 'A Play' at all." --Poe's Literati.

As the critic had just quoted from Mr. Longfellow's Preface, which informs the reader of the sources of the subject of the production which follows, it was quite unnecessary to assure us that the "thesis was unoriginal." Certainly it is unoriginal: the thesis of The Golden Legend is unoriginal, also; and so is that of Reynard the Fox. Such comments add little to our stock of knowledge. As regards instances of alleged imitations, &c. of other authors, which Mr. Poe produces from portions of Mr. Longfellow's works, it does not, of course, become us to offer any opinion; but, upon the subject of literary coincidences in general, we may be allowed to remark that to require a scholar who has mastered the choicest productions of half a dozen or more languages to discharge his mind of all foreign acquisitions and place them in a corner of his library, whilst he proceeds to compose from a mind in puris naturalibus, is about as wise as the expectation that the lake of the valley should be able, at the word of command, to reconvert itself into the insignificant mountain-stream to which it owes its origin. 

"In The Spanish Student, the affluence of his imagination in images of grace, grandeur, and beauty is most strikingly manifested. The objection to it as a play is its lack of skill or power in the dramatic exhibition of character; but read merely as a poem cast in the form of a dialogue it is one of the most beautiful in American literature. None of his other pieces so well illustrates all his poetical qualities,--his imagination, his fancy, his sentiment, and his manner. It seems to comprehend the whole extent of his genius."--Whipple's Essays and Reviews, Bost., 1851, i. 66.
 

8. THE BELFRY OF BRUGES, and other Poems, Camb., Mass., 1846, 16mo. Sale to April, 1857, 38,000 copies.

9. EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE, Bost., 1847, 12mo. Sale to April, 1857, 37,000 copies.

Mr. Gilfillan says many handsome things of Mr. Longfellow's minor poems, &c., which commendations the reader should not fail to peruse. 

"With the sorrows of Evangeline a simpler rhythm would have been more in harmony,--were even the antique measure here selected completely bent to its modern occupation. This, however, is not the case.... The pilgrimage of the maiden in search of her betrothed is told with great feeling and pathos. But the real charm of the tale lies in its insulated pictures of scenery, one or two of which we will give."--Lon. Athen., 1848, 673. 

"Evangeline, as almost all of our readers are aware, is one of the most pathetic and beautiful poetical narrations which has ever enriched our language. The pastoral scenes are lifelike daguerreotypes: there is an originality about the story of the lovers, and an appropriate solemnity of language throughout the whole piece, which, added to the beautiful descriptions which lie scattered among its pages, and the apposite comparisons which stud them, render it a truly fascinating if not enchanting poem. The most remarkable tale of passionate and constant love must 'pale its ineffectual fires' at the recital of the devotion of Evangeline and the heroic constancy of her lover. Sir Edwin Landseer may well envy the ensuing pastoral sketch: 

"'Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a pent-house,' &c." 

[Quoted to the end of the line concluding with "sang of mutation."]--Irish Quar. Rev., June, 1855, 202-203. 

"This is an American poem, full of beauties of real indigenous growth; and we hail its appearance with the greater satisfaction inasmuch as it is the first genuine Castalian fount which has burst from the soil of America."--Fraser's Mag., xxxvii. 295; copied in Bost. Living Age, xvii. 145-147. 

"His longest poem, Evangeline, . . . was not long since warmly commended in these pages. No one with any pretensions to poetic feeling can read its delicious portraiture of rustic scenery, and of a mode of life long since defunct, without the most intense delight."--The Metropolitan; copied in Bost. Living Age, xix. 481-485. 

"It is a tale of simple earnestness, very graceful, and, amid its unexaggerated truthfulness, animated by a tranquil and lofty spirit of endurance.... The interest in Evangeline, throughout her devious, life-prolonged search, is kept up without intermission; and what is painful in the theme is relieved by beautiful sketches of the scenery of the Southwestern waters and the busy lives of their inhabitants.... The happy and varied imagery of the poem is throughout inwrought with that higher spirit which can impart a sad pleasure even to the deepest tragedy."--Lon. Examiner; copied in Bost. Liv. Age, xxiii. 390-391. 

Mr. C. C. Felton, one of the most eminent of American classical scholars, after giving us a brief sketch of the history of Acadie, remarks: 

"This subject, wholly national in its character, Mr. Longfellow has made the basis of the poem of Evangeline. He has selected those circumstances in the story which are susceptible of poetical treatment, and so combined them as to create, from authentic historical materials, a tale of rare beauty, tenderness, and moral power.... In Evangeline, Mr. Longfellow has managed the hexameter with wonderful skill. The homely features of Acadian life are painted with Homeric simplicity, while the luxuriance of a Southern climate is magnificently described with equal fidelity and minuteness of finish. The subject is eminently fitted for this treatment; and Mr. Longfellow's extraordinary command over rhythmical resources of language has enabled him to handle it certainly with as perfect a mastery over the dactylic hexameter as any one has ever acquired in our language."--N. Amer. Rev., xvi. 215-244. 

"His Evangeline is a beautiful picture of rural life and love, which, from the charm of its pictures and the gentle harmony of its sentiment, became popular although written in hexameters."-- HENRY T. TUCKERMAN: Sketch of Amer. Lit.

"Elaborate and touching, his Evangeline is the most perfect specimen extant of the rhythm and melody of the English hexameter."--PRESIDENT CHAS. KING: Oakley's ed. of Kent and King's' Outlines of a Course of English Reading, N. York, 98. 

The subject of English hexameters has already come under our notice on a preceding page, (635;) and it will be significant to refer the reader to our article on ABRAHAM FRAUNCE and the authorities there cited. The critic in Blackwood (Feb. 1856) concludes his notice of Hiawatha with the remark: 

"The poet was more successful in the wistfulness of his Evangeline, to which even these lengthened, desolate, inquiring hexameters lent a charm of appropriate sympathy; but it is a peculiarity of this sweet singer that his best strains are always wistful, longing, true voices of the night." 

See other notices of Evangeline, in Amer. Whig Rev., vii. 155, (by G. W. Peck;) New Englander, vi. 548, (by G. H. Holliston;) Univ. Quar. Rev., v. [104,?] (by T. S. King;) Brownson's Quar. Rev., 2d ser., iv. 56; South. Lit. Mess., xv. 46; Amer. Lit. Mag., ii. 172; Eclec. Mag., xv. 96. 

Of course, the admirer of Evangeline will not be satisfied to be without the beautiful picture of Evangeline painted by Thomas Faed and engraved by James Faed: size of plate, without margin, 14 by 17 1/2 inches: 

"Sat by some nameless grave, and though that perhaps in its bosom
He was already at rest; and she longed to slumber beside him.'

"I am delighted with the work, both in conception and execution, and have written to Mr. Faed to express my acknowledgment for this mark of his consideration and my appreciation of the very great beauty and feeling of his illustration."--Letter of Mr. Longfellow to the publishers.
 

10. KAVANAGH: A TALE, Bost., 1849, 16mo. Sale to April. 1857, [?,500] copies.

All who love purity of tone, tenderness, and picturesque simplicity have incurred a new obligation to the author of Kavanagh."--J. RUSSELL LOWELL: N. Amer. Rev., lxix. 196-216. 

In this paper will be found some very sensible comments upon the oft-repeated and seldom-comprehended phrase, "a national literature." See also Mr. Lowell's remarks on the same subject in his review of The Timon, N. Amer. Rev., lxiv 460, et seq. Mr. Longfellow himself, it will be remembered, has also written eloquently upon this theme; and, we may say, since the publication of Hiawatha he has written eloquently upon the other side of the question also. We should refer the reader to Mr. Longfellow's comments on "A National Literature" in the Preface to his Poets and Poetry of Europe. 

Kavanagh is essentially Richterish, yet with a difference. The sharpness of touch, the incessant revelations of stoical character which break through the fantastic waywardness of Richter, are not here. On the other hand, it has nothing of the conscious effort which sometimes characterizes Richter's wit,--nothing of the indulgence in sheer dirt which he mingles so harshly with passages of dreaming, ethereal purity."--Lon. Examiner; (copiedin Bost. Liv. Age, xxiii. 389-390.) 
 

11. THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE, Bost., 1849, 16mo. Sale to April, 1857, 30,000 copies.

12. THE GOLDEN LEGEND, Bost., 1851, 12mo. Sale to April, 1857, 17,000 copies.

" We have no hesitation in expressing our opinion that there is nearly as much fine poetry in Mr. Longfellow's Golden Legend as in the celebrated drama of Goethe.... Elsie, the farmer's daughter,--scarcely more than a child in years, but a woman in tenderness and devotion,--is as beautiful a conception as ever was formed in the mind of the poet.... We have already, at the commencement of this paper, expressed our decided objection to the machinery employed by Mr. Longfellow. It is the reverse of original, being now very hackneyed; and it is absurdly disproportionate to the object for which it is introduced.... Occasionally, whilst, retaining rhyme and the semblance of metre, Mr. Longfellow is betrayed into "great extravagance."--Blackw. Mag., Feb. 1852. 

"Longfellow, in the Golden Legend, has entered more closely into the temper of the Monk, for good and for evil, than ever yet theological writer or historian, though they may have given their life's labour to the analysis."--Ruskin's Mod. Painters, vol. iv. p. 377.
 

15. THE POETS AND POETRY OF EUROPE, with Biographical Notices and Translations from the earliest period to the present time, Phila., 1845, 8vo, pp. 179; 1848, r. 8vo; 1855. r. 8vo. This valuable volume contains selections from about three hundred and sixty authors, translated from ten languages,--the Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Mr. Longfellow himself gives us translations from all of these languages but two. Among the other translators are Bowring, Felton, Herbert, Costello, Taylor, Jamieson, Brooks, Adamson, Thorpe, &c.

"We think Professor Longfellow has done a good service to literature by preparing this work. It contains a great deal of valuable information respecting the different languages of Europe, as well as of the various writers of poetry. The extracts from the authors are sufficiently numerous and lengthy to give a fair idea of the peculiarities, style, and class of each. . . . Instead of decrying such selections on the ground that they give us only a smattering of the authors and their writings, we hail them as most powerful helps in disseminating information and creating and increasing a taste for mental cultivation."--Prot. Epis. Quar. Rev. and Church Register, N. York, April, 1855, 310-311. See also Lon. Athen., 1845, 961-962. 

We should be pleased to see a second volume of this work, according to the suggestion of the learned editor. As we have had occasion to refer to Mr. Longfellow's translations,--we speak not only of those in the volume just noticed,--we must quote a few lines more upon the subject: 

"Longfellow's translations from the German, Swedish, Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, and Anglo-Saxon possess in a very high degree that elegance of diction and thoroughly classical colouring for which all his other poems are remarkable."--IrishQuar. Rev. June, 1855, 202. 

"Professor Longfellow excels in translating from the German and the Swedish."--Lon. Athen., 1844, 8. 

The North American reviewer of Longfellow's Voices of the Night (1839, 16mo) remarks that the Translations from the French, Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and German are all executed with a high degree of skill."--Vol. l. 269. 

But Mr. Longfellow's fame as an accomplished linguist is so well established that it is not necessary for us to multiply quotations on this point.
 
 

16. THE SONG OF HIAWATHA, Bost., Oct. 1855, 16mo. Sale, in less than four weeks after publication, 10,000 copies; sale to end of March, 1857, 30,000 copies; to April 1857, 50,000 copies.

"Into this old tradition I have woven other curious Indian legends, drawn chiefly from the various and valuable writings of Mr. Schoolcraft, to whom the literary world is greatly indebted for his indefatigable zeal in rescuing from oblivion so much of the legendary lore of the Indians. 

"The scene of the poem is among the Ojibways, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable."--Note to Hiawatha. 

Notwithstanding this full and explicit statement by Mr. Longfellow of the sources from which be had derived the material of his poem, a writer in the National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.) pub. an article, in a few weeks after the appearance of Hiawatha, charging the author with having borrowed "the entire form, spirit, and many of the most striking incidents'' of Kalevala, the great national epic of the Finns. This attack was answered in two letters in The New York Observer, (Jan. 24, 1856, et ante,)under the signature of Theodorus. The reviewer remarks, "Such a charge is not only untenable, but absurd," and proceeds to expose the alleged absurdity of which he complains. William Howitt, in a letter to the London Athenæum, Nov. 17, 1855,--elicited by a review of Hiawatha in a preceding number (Nov. 10, 1855,) of that excellent journal,--eulogizes Hiawatha in the highest terms, and commends the author for having chosen the metre of the Kalevala and the Kanteletar, but says not a word of plagiarism or even of imitation. Howitt's letter elicited another, (Athen., Nov. 24, 1855,) from. Mr. D. F. McCarthy, (translator of Dramas of Calderon from the Spanish,) who adduces examples to prove that the metre of Hiawatha is not confined to Finlandic or Sclavonic poets; and he does not think it a matter of course, therefore, that even the metre was suggested to Mr. Longfellow by any of those bards. In the same periodical for Dec. 1, 1855, Mr. W. S. takes the field and opens the question still further, remarking that 

"Rhymeless trochaic dimeter is commonly used throughout Europe . . . Mr. Longfellow in his unalliterated trochaics, may with as little reason be said to imitate the metre of the 'Kalevala' or Philalethes", in his rhymeless iambic trimeter catalectic version of the Divina Comedia, can be asserted to represent the music of Dante." 

As usual in cases of this character, two of the critics engaged in the controversy soon fell into a misunderstanding on their own account: Mr. Howitt felt himself aggrieved by some comments of W. S.'s upon his first communication, and in the Athenæum for Dec. 8, 1855, he takes the offender to task for his alleged want of courtesy. Mr. W. S., noways abashed, returns to the charge in the Athenæum for Dec. 15, and in the same paper appears a letter from W. Brockie, who, coolly enough, commences his dissertation with-- 

"The question as to whether or not Longfellow's Hiawatha is in the national metre of Finland seems not unlikely to raise a controversy in your columns. W. S. says it is not: I am inclined to think it is." 

It would appear to our superficial judgment that the "controversy" had been already pretty well "raised." But the end is not yet. In the Athenæum for Dec. 29, Mr. Ferdinand Freiligrath gives us a summary of the Arguments advanced by the four contestants, and decides that Hiawatha "is written in a modified Finnish metre,--modified by the exquisite feeling of the American poet, according to the genius of the English language and to the wants of modern taste. I feel perfectly convinced that, when Mr. Longfellow wrote Hiawatha, the sweet monotony of the trochees of Finland, and not the mellow and mellodious fall of those of Spain, vibrated in his soul." 

From Mr. Freiligrath's intimate acquaintance with Von Schröter's Finnische Runen (Finnisch und Deutsch Stuttgart und Tübingen, 1834) and the Kalevala, surely he would have been the one to detect any close imitations on the part of the American poet; but nothing of this kind is intimated. The London Leader also took a part in the Hiawatha controversy, and Dr. Latham, in a letter to that paper, considers that Mr. Longfellow received many suggestions (as stated by the writer in the National Intelligencer) from Kalevala; but the editor of the Leader takes an entirely different view of the subject, defends the author of Hiawatha manfully, and dismisses the whole matter with the comment: 

"In Longfellow's case the obligation to Kalevala is assumed: it is very possibly no direct obligation at all; but, granting the obligation, we entirely absolve the poet for not having mentioned it." 

Now, it is evident that Dr. Schoolcraft himself is the best judge whether the author of Hiawatha has faithfully reproduced in poetry those peculiarities of Indian mythology, customs, and superstitions which Dr. Schoolcraft has given us in prose,--on which prose Longfellow avowedly bases his poem. To him, therefore, let us have recourse for the solution of this question. 

We quote from his dedication of The Myth of Hiawatha and other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians, Phila. and Lon., 1856, 12mo: 

"To Professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

"Sir:--Permit me to dedicate to you this volume of Indian myths and legends, derived from the story-telling circle of the native wigwams. That they indicate the possession, by the Vesperic tribes, of mental resources of a very characteristic kind.-- furnishing, in fact, a new point from which to judge the race and to excite intellectual sympathies--you have most felicitously shown in your poem of Hiawatha. Not only so, but you have demonstrated, by this pleasing series of pictures of Indian life, sentiment, and invention, that the use of the native lore reveals one of the true sources of our literary independence. Greece and Rome, England and Italy, have so long furnished, if they have not exhausted, the field of poetic culture, that it is at least refreshing to find, both in theme and metre, something new. 

"Very truly, yours, 

"HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT." 

This certainly puts forever at rest the charge of the author of Hiawatha having borrowed--as has been alleged--"the form, spirit, and many of the most striking incidents of Kalevala." If these are dissimilar to those so graphically depicted by Dr. Schoolcraft, this gentleman could not endorse, as he has done, the faithfulness of Longfellow's poetical version of the latter: the admixture of foreign colours would necessarily destroy the vraisemblance of the whole picture. And if the Kalevala's "form, spirit, and incidents" are so exactly similar to the original Hiawatha characteristics, we see no necessity for borrowing the former, and no possibility of detecting their incorporation if they were borrowed. It is a very natural remark, that the author who first makes popular a peculiar style or measure must expect to be charged with plagiarism by the ignoramus who makes the wonderful discovery that such style or measure did not originate with the writer through whose agency it became known to him. 

Having thus devoted quite as much space as we can afford to an examination of the paternity of Hiawatha, and recommitted this interesting aborigine to the domicile of the claimant whose name he bears, it is proper that we should inquire what impression he has made upon the many thousands in whose libraries and parlours he has become an intimate during his wanderings in his native country and in strange lands. 

"Longfellow's epic," says a critic in Das Ausland, "is undoubtedly the most considerable poem which has appeared for some years in the English language. Its success has been unexampled on both sides of the Atlantic. In London the book has been twice reprinted; and, although we ordered it immediately after its publication, we were only able to secure a copy of the fourth edition. It was certainly a happy thought to gather the legends of the tawny aborigines of North America together in a great poem." 

But this reviewer by no means accedes to Hiawatha unmixed commendation: he objects to portions of the plot, and to the measure. 

"The tale itself is beautiful, fanciful, and new, and he has worked it up into a poem of many parts.... He has produced, in an imaginary memoir of the hero, Hiawatha, a picture of Indian life as it exists in the forest and by the river, full of light and colour, repose and action.... It is beyond all doubt that this Song of Hiawatha will increase Mr. Longfellow's reputation as a singer. The verse, as we have said and proved by extract, is sweet and simple, is full of local and national colour has a tone and ring of its own: in a word, the story of Hiawatha is the poet's most original production."--Lon. Athenæum, Nov. 10, 1855, 1295; and see p. 1339. 

"This Song is a quaint chant, a happy illustration of manners, but it lacks all the important elements which go to the making of a poem. We are interested, pleased, attracted, yet perfectly indifferent: the measure haunts the ear, but not the matter; and we care no more for Hiawatha and arc as little concerned for the land of the Ojibbeways, as if America's best minstrel had never made a song." -- Blackwood's Mag., Feb. 1856. 

But audi alteram partem: after an enthusiastic eulogy on Hiawatha in the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine for Jan. 1856, the critic concludes with-- 

"Henceforth the Ojibway and the Dacotah are to us realities,--men of like passions with ourselves. In our own dear mother tongue their sweet singer Nawadaha has spoken to us, and the voice has gone direct from his heart to ours." 

"Hiawatha may be taken as an accurate representation of Indian manners and superstitions artistically treated and poetically adorned."--Lon. Spectator.

"Mr. Longfellow's reputation will, we think, be raised by the Song of Hiawatha: it is by far, in our judgment, the most original of all his productions."--Lon. Examiner. 

"If Mr. Longfellow had enriched the literature of his country with nothing save The Song of Hiawatha, he would deserve the poet's bays for this elaborate and most successful attempt to give to that literature a strong individuality, peculiar to the land where the red man once 

'hunted the bison and the beaver,'

"We think it is his greatest poem. It is the most absorbing work of its length we have ever read."--National Intelligencer, (Washington, D. C.) 

The Liverpool Albion remarks that every succeeding effort of Longfellow isbetter than the last, and that Hiawatha is to be an immortal poem. 

"Longfellow is the most accomplished poet of the day. Hiawatha is unquestionably his ablest work.... Every scene the Indian hero traverses in his allegorical progress is a breathing landscape, every adventure he meets with a capital story.... The episode of Hiawatha's Wooing, which we quoted in our last week's number, is one of the finest in the volume. It is a delicious love-story and would, without the slightest context, make the fortune of any poet.... Of the legends themselves that Mr. Longfellow has collected, their possible origin, and interest as relating to other mythologies, we have no time to speak. We must content ourselves with an expression of unqualified approval of the manner in which they have been collected, digested, and set to the most exquisite music."--Lon. Illustrated Times. 

As regards this "most exquisite music" there are very different opinions: 

"Anybody who has read the five thousand and odd verses of Hiawatha has certainly had enough of this epic metre, which very soon becomes as tiresome to the ear as the tune of a barrelorgan."--Das Ausland.

"We have often had occasion," says the London Leader, "to remark on the careful study of our recent literature displayed in its criticisms of English authors by the Revue des Deux Mondes. The last number contains an article on Longfellow's Hiawatha, remarkable for subtle insight into the peculiar character of the poem and genial criticism of its special merits. The writer, M. Émile Montégut, shows a thorough appreciation of the poetic substance and form of Longfellow's Indian legend scarcely to be expected in a foreigner, and least of all in a Frenchman. He pronounces Hiawatha to be the most finished poem Longfellow has produced. Of the metre he says: 

"'The melody of the verse, rapid and monotonous, is like the voice of nature, which never fatigues us though continually repeating the same sound. Two or three notes compose the whole music of the poem, melodious and limited as the song of a bird.' Describing the general character of Hiawatha, hc says, 'The feeling for nature that pervades the poem is at once most refined and most familiar. The poet knows how to give, as a modern, voices to all the inanimate objects of nature: he knows the language of the birds, he understands the murmur of the wind amongst the leaves, he interprets the voices of the running streams, and yet, notwithstanding this poetic subtlety, he never turns aside to minute description, nor attempts to prolong, by reflection, the emotion excited. His poem, made with exquisite art has thus a double character: it is Homeric from the precision, simplicity, and familiarity of its images, and modern from the vivacity of its impressions and from the lyrical spirit that breathes in every page."' 

The London Athenæum, after giving copious extracts, remarks 

"The Song of Hiawatha moves throughout in this beautiful and simple measure. Except in good hands, an instrument so artless would most likely fail. The line would tire on the ear. But Mr. Longfellow has contrived to give variety even to a measure evidently chosen for its sad and tender monotone: . . . despite its sameness of cadence, it scarcely palls on the ear even at the five thousandth verse."--Nov. 10, 1855, 1295. 

"Unhappily for the poet, this is the very measure to attract the parodist. Punch has opened the assault, and we will not venture to predict how many gleeful voices may echo his good-humoured mockery before the year is out. The jingle of this measure is irresistible, and, with a good vocabulary of any savage language at one's elbow, one feels a pleasing confidence that the strain might spin on forever, and almost make itself."--Blackw. Mag., Feb. 1856. 

There have, indeed, we are sorry to say, been many parodies of Hiawatha. We have no patience with a burlesque imitation of an earnest original. Punning has been called (we say not, truly) the 1owest kind of wit; but surely he who first said so forgot parodying. There was indeed, so much true wit, so much hearty appreciation of the merits of the poet and the poem, in Punch's parody that we could have excused it, had it not been for the baleful effects of its potent example. We cite an instance from a Boston paper of a much more agreeable evidence of the popularity of Hiawatha: 

"The beautiful three-decked ship Minnehaha (named from the heroine of Longfellow's charming poem of Hiawatha) was most successfully launched about noon, on Saturday last, from Donald McKay's yard at East Boston The occasion was one of unusual interest, and attracted a very large concourse of people, who rent the air with their huzzas as the Minnehaha gracefully glided into the 'laughing waters,' (her namesake.)"

As early as Feb. 15, 1856,--four months after the first publication of Hiawatha,--a German translation by Adolph Böttger, was pub. in Leipsic. In April, 1856, another translation into German, by Ferdinand Freiligrath, was in the hands of the European public. The original poem was issued at Leipsic in January, 1856, at half a thaler by Alphons Dürr. (for vol. xvii. of his Collection of Standard American Authors.) He notes on his title-page that Hiawatha is supplied in Rome, Vienna, Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels, Basle, Turin, Trieste, Venice, and Verona. We quote some other evidences of the popularity of Hiawatha: 

A PLUM FOR HIAWATHA.--Mr. Bright, in his recent speech at Manchester, commenting upon the effect of the war upon all departments of English effort, spoke of its influence upon the tone of English poetry, and contrasted Tennyson's war-lyrics with Longfellow's Hiawatha, thus:--Take the poet-laureate as an example--[hear, hear]--a gentleman whom I have never seen or met, I believe, but once accidentally,--a gentleman of great refinement of manner and of mind, who has written poetry in our language, [hear, hear:] yet such was the pestilent influence of these scenes of carnage on a mind so accomplished and elevated as that, that he puts forth a poem which his friends are anxious should never be spoken of. I have had the opportunity lately of reading a poem from another country, written by the American poet Longfellow--[applause]--a poem which treats of the legends of the Indian tribes: and, while I have turned from the poem of our poet-laureate, in which I find him descending to slang of almost the grossest character. I turn with delight to the exquisite poem which has come to us from the other side of the Atlantic.' [Hear, hear.]" 

Cardinal Wiseman some time since prefaced an enthusiastic eulogy on Longfellow (which we shall presently quote for the benefit of our readers) with the remark: 

"He was a true philosopher who said, 'Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.'" 

His Eminence, however, could hardly have foreseen that Longfellow's poetry would ere long be used by a ruler as an instrument to pacify a people for whom the threatenings of the law had but few terrors. We quote the narration which has elicited these remarks: 

"AN APT QUOTATION.--The Lecompton (Kansas) Union of the 2d Inst. has a pleasant account of a visit recently paid by Acting Governor Stanton to the citizens of Lawrence. After partaking of the hospitalities kindly extended to him by Governor Robinson, he addressed, by request, a crowd of some five hundred free-State men who did not hesitate to manifest disapprobation at such portions of the speech as did not accord with their peculiar political views At the close of Mr. Stanton's speech he pictured in glowing language the Indian tradition of Hiawatha, of the 'Peace-Pipe,' 'shaped and fashioned' by 'Gitchie Manito, the Mighty,' and by which he 'called the tribes of men together,' and in his own language addressed them:-- 

"'I have given you lands to hunt in,
I have given you streams to fish in,
I have given you bear and bison,
I have given you roe and reindeer,
I have given you brant and beaver,
Fill'd the marshes full of wild fowl,
Fill'd the river full of fishes:
Why, then, are you not contented?
Why, then, will you hunt each other?

"'I am weary of your quarrels,
Weary of your wars and bloodshed,
Weary of your prayers for vengeance,
Of your wranglings and dissensions:
All your strength is in your union,
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And, as brothers, live together.'

We have not been sparing of the quotation of opinions on Hiawatha; but those who desire to pursue the subject still further can refer to the Irish Quarterly Review, Jan. 1856, and to Putnam's (New York) Magazine, Dec. 1855. 

Having now concluded the list of the publications of this favorite author, it is proper that we should say a few words respecting the principal editions of his works. A beautiful illustrated collective ed. of Longfellow's Poetical Works was pub. by Carey & Hart in Philadelphia, 1845, 8vo, with engravings by J. Cheney from original pictures by Huntington. Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, of Boston,-- so favourably known for their taste in getting up the best productions of American and English authors,--have been for some years Mr. Longfellow's publishers, and issue his works in single vols., or all together in 6 vols.,--three of poetry and three of prose. They have within the last few months (in 1857) given to the world a beautiful edition of his Complete Works,--viz.: POEMS in 2 vols. 32mo.. Contents of vol. i.: 1. Voices of the Night; 2. Earlier Poems; 3. Translations; 4. Ballads, and other Poems; 5. Poems on Slavery; 6. The Spanish Student; 7. The Belfry of Bruges, and other Poems; 8. The Seaside and the Fireside. Contents of vol. ii.: 1. Evangeline; 2. The Golden Legend; 3. Hiawatha. PROSE WORKS, 2 vols. 32mo,--viz.: Contents of vol. i.: l. Outre-Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea; 2. Drift-Wood, a Collection of Essays. Contents of vol. ii.: 1. Hyperion, a Romance; 2. Kavanagh, a Tale. The circulation of this beautiful edition, which is sold at the trifling price of seventy-five cents per vol., will undoubtedly be very large. We recapitulate the figures which we have affixed to the titles of Longfellow's productions. 

What the sale has been in Europe we have no means of knowing; but, as Longfellow is the most popular poet in America, undoubtedly he enjoys the same pre-eminence in Great Britain. If this assertion amaze the reader, we shall strengthen it a little, and are very safe in affirming that there is no living poet on either side of the water who makes even a distant approach to Longfellow's 

popularity. Within the last few years the English eds. of his Works have been issued by the following publishers: 1. Bickers; 2. Bogue; 3. Chapman; 4. Clarke; 5. Dickinson; 6. Gilpin; 7. Houlston; 8. Knight & Son; 9. Gall & Inglis; 10. Nelson; 11. Routledge; 12. Simpkin; 13. Slater; 14. Tegg; 15. Theobald; 16. Whittaker; 17. Kent & Richards; 18. Walker. Among the eds. put forth by these publishers deserving of particular notice are: 1. Poetical Works, "containing 34 pieces not in any other illustrated ed.;" illustrated by John Gilbert. 100 plates with a portrait after Lawrence, 1855, p. 4to, £1 1s.; pub. by Routledge. 2. Poetical Works, illustrated by Birket Foster, and others; last ed., 1856, 8vo, £1 ls., pub. by Bogue. 3. Poems, with Essay by Gilfillan, (Liverp.,) 1850, sq., 5s. 6d.; gilt, 6s. 6d.; mor. extra, 10s., pub. by Simpkin. 4. Voices of the Night, illustrated by a Lady, 1850, 4to, 10s. 6d.; pub. by Dickinson. 5. Voices of the Night illustrated, 1852, 8vo, 15s.; pub. by Bogue. 6. Evangeline, illustrated, 1849, p. 8vo; 3d ed., 1852, p. 8vo, 10s. 6d.; pub. by Bogue. 7. Evangeline, illustrated by John Gilbert, engravings by Dalziel Brothers, 1856, med. 8vo, 7s. 6d.; pub. by Routledge. 8. Golden Legend, illustrated with 50 engravings, 1855, cr. 8vo, 12s., mor., 21s.; pub. by Bogue. 9. Song of Hiawatha, illustrated by John Gilbert, 1856, 2s. 6d.; gilt, 3s., pub. by Routledge. 10. Prose Works,--viz.: I. OutreMer; II. Hyperion; III. Kavanagh; new ed., all in 1 vol. sq., 6s., pub. by Bogue. 11. Hyperion, with illustrations, 1852 sq., 3s 6d., pub. by Bogue. 12. Prose Works, by Gilfillan, 1857, 12mo, 4s.; pub. by Bickers. Nor should we omit to notice the beautiful "Christmas Present," pub. by Boosey & Sons, of Holles Street, (1857, 12mo, £1 3s.,) containing Fourteen of Longfellow's Songs, set to Music by Balfe, as introduced at all the principal Concerts of the Season by Miss Dolby, Miss Huddart, Mr. Sims Reeve, and Herr Reichardt. Contents; 1. Two Locks of Hair, Song; 2. The Village Blacksmith, Song; 3. The Rainy Day, Song; 4. Stars of the Summer Night, Serenade; 5. The Arrow and the Song, Song; 6. The Happiest Land, Song; 7. Good-Night, Beloved, Serenade; 8. Annie of Tharaw, Song; 9. The Reaper and the Flowers, Song; 10. This is the Place, Ballad; 11. The Green Trees, Ballad; 12. The Day is Done, Song; 13. Trust her not, Duett; 14. Excelsior, Duett. 

The publication of this volume is another evidence of the unbounded popularity of the author in Great Britain. 

" Probably there is no author who writes the English language," 

remarks the correspondent of Moore's Rural New-Yorker, "so popular in England, at the present time, as Longfellow. His writings are the subject of much criticism in the journals, and are printed in almost every possible form and style. The number of cheap editions is very numerous, and this is a convincing proof of his great popularity. He is read and admired by all classes; and quotations from his poems are frequently made in the pulpit, in journals, and by public speakers." 

Grace Greenwood, (Mrs. Sarah J. Lippincott,) in her Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe, remarks: 

"During this evening Mr. Dickens spoke to me with much interest and admiration of Mrs. Stowe and Mr. Hawthorne. Wherever I go, my national pride is gratified by hearing eloquent tributes to these authors and to the poet Longfellow." 

Mary Russell Mitford was one of the most ardent of our poet's admirers, and devotes a chapter to his praise and poetry in her Recollections of a Literary Life: 

"I do not know a more enviable reputation," she remarks, "than Professor Longfellow has won for himself in this country,--won, too, with a rapidity seldom experienced by our native poets. The terseness of diction and force of thought delight the old; the grace and melody enchant the young; the unaffected and all-pervading piety satisfies the serious; and a certain slight touch of mysticism carries the imaginative reader fairly off his feet. For my own part, I confess not only to the being captivated by all these qualities, (mysticism excepted,) but to the farther fact of yielding to the charm of certain lines. I cannot very well tell why, and walking about the house repeating such figments as this,-- 

'I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars,'--

That exquisite poet and intelligent critic, Mr. Moir, (the "Delta" of Blackwood,) at the conclusion of his Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century, (Edin. and Lon., 1851, 12mo,) remarks: 

" I should have also liked to have been able to add more strictures on the brother-poets of America, more especially Henry Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant, for both of whom I have a high admiration,--the one being distinguished for the possession of the very element in which our recent verse is so deficient,--imaginative truth, --and the other having preserved, in many of his pictures, the native aboriginal tone which must hereafter render them invaluable." 

"The distinguishing qualities of Longfellow seem to be beauty of imagination, delicacy of taste, wide sympathy, and mild earnestness, expressing themselves sometimes in forms of quaint and fantastic fancy. but always in chaste and simple language.... One of the most pleasing characteristics of this writer's works is their intense humanity. A man's heart beats in his every line.... He loves, pities, and feels with, as well as for, his fellow human mortal.... He is a brother, speaking to men as brothers, and as brothers they are responsive to his voice.... We close our paper with feelings of gratitude and respect for our transatlantic author." --Gilfillan's Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 2d. ed., Edin., 1852, 254-264. 

"In golden harmony, mellifluous diction, and erudite polish, Longfellow can successfully compete with our most fastidious poets; and few can surpass him in richness of fancy, imaginative capacity, and elevation of thought. The admiration which his poetry must necessarily elicit from us will be heightened considerably when we reflect that this elegance and unalterable deference to the laws of beauty is altogether unattended by any poverty of substance, connected range of thought, tameness in origination of idea or its embodiment.... Philosophy, and that generally of the purest and the most hopeful kind, enhances the value of his poetry, his metaphysical ratiocinations are no less remarkable for their soundness and subtlety than for the buoyant spirit which pervades them; and wisdom holds her throne supreme over all his imaginings."--Irish Quar. Rev. June, 1855, 197-204. 

"His poems are of an order to which we have none akin. Germany, more than England, has been the source of his inspiration. Our own writers of short poems--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley --have nothing in common with him. He is still further removed from our lyric writers, from Burns to Moore. He writes, like Cowper, with a purpose, and his verses have a liquid flow to which the former can lay no claim."--Lon. Metropolitan. 

"We are thankful that the present Age is graced by such a poet as Mr. Longfellow, whose extraordinary accomplishment and research, and devotion to his high calling, can hardly be overrated. His productions must always command our deep attention, for in them we are certain to meet with great beauty of thought, and very elegant diction."--Blackwood's Mag., Feb. 1852. 

See also Ruskin's Elements of Drawing; Leigh Hunt's letter to the American editor of his Corrected Poetical Works, prefixed to this collection, pub. by Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1857. 

These are certainly high commendations, and, with those previously quoted from foreign sources, must be the more gratifying to the subject of them from the fact that no national partiality can be suspected. Not, indeed, that our American critics are often guilty of indiscriminate laudation of their own countrymen. We are very naturally and very properly awake to the danger of erring in this matter, and are quite as likely to permit caution to incline us to the other extreme. As regards Mr. Longfellow, however, were our critics ever so extravagant in eulogy, it would be difficult for them to surpass the leaders of literary opinion in Europe. We have already quoted many American criticisms on several of our author's works, and feel tempted to adduce several native opinions. respecting his general characteristics as a poet; but here-- our article having already insensibly lengthened itself until like the clown in the churchyard, we are afraid to look back--we must force ourselves to be brief. 

"Longfellow has a perfect command of that expression which results from restraining rather than cultivating fluency; and his manner is adapted to his theme. He rarely, if ever, mistakes 'emotions for conceptions.' He selects with great delicacy and precision the exact phrase which best expresses or suggests his idea. He colours his style with the skill of a painter; and, in compelling words to picture thought, he not only has the warm flush and bright tints of language at his command, but he arrests its evanescent hues. In the higher department of his art--that of so combining his words and images that they make music to the soul as well as to the ear, and convey not only his feelings and thoughts, but also the very tone and condition of the soul in which they have their being--he has given exquisite examples in Maidenhood and Endymion.... Longfellow's verse occupies a position halfway between the poetry of actual life and the poetry of transcendentalism. Like all neutrals, he is liable to attack from the zealots of both parties; but it seems to us that he has hit the exact point beyond which no poet can at present go without being either neglected or ridiculed. He idealizes real life; he elicits new meaning from many of its rough shows; he clothes subtle and delicate thoughts in familiar imagery; he embodies high moral sentiment in beautiful and ennobling forms; he inweaves the golden threads of spiritual being into the texture of common existence; he discerns and addresses some of the finest sympathies of the heart: but he rarely soars into those regions of abstract imagination where the bodily eye cannot follow, but where that of the seer is gifted with a 'pervading vision.'"--E. P. Whipple's Essays and Reviews, vol. i. 60-61, 62-63; and N. Amer. Rev., Jan. 1844, vol. lviii. 24, 26. 

The reader should peruse the whole of this admirable paper, or, rather, the whole of the two volumes,--Whipple's Essays and Reviews, Bost., 1851. 

'Nothing can exceed the exquisite beauty of some of his smaller pieces, while they also abound in that richness of expression and imagery which the Romantic muse is supposed to claim as her more especial attribute. The melody of his versification is very remarkable: some of his stanzas sound with the richest and sweetest music of which language is capable. It is unnecessary to illustrate this remark by quotations: the memories of all readers of poetry involuntarily retain them. In the range of American poetry, it would not be easy to find any that is so readily remembered, that has sunk so deeply into the hearts of the people, and that so spontaneously rises to the speaker's tongue in the pulpit and the lecture-room."--PROF. C. C. FELTON: N. Amer. Rev., July, 1842, lv. 115. 

"Almost all Longfellow's poems are gems set with consummate taste.... His Skeleton in Armor is the most novel and characteristic of his shorter poems, and his Psalm of Life and Excelsior are the most familiar and endeared. He is the artistic, as Halleck is the lyrical, and Bryant the picturesque and philosophic, of American poets."--H. T. TUCKERMAN: Sketch of Amer. Lit., 1852. 

The reference to the Psalm of Life and Excelsior may remind some of our renders of Mr. Gilfillan's fervid commendation of these poems: 

"No poet has more beautifully expressed the depth of his conviction that life is an earnest reality,--a something with eternal issues and dependencies, that this earth is no scene of revelry or market of sale but an arena of contest. This is the inspiration of his Psalm of Life; than which we have few things finer, in moral tone, since those odes by which the millions of Israel tuned their march across the wilderness.... We have just alluded to Excelsior, one of those happy thoughts which seem to drop down, like fine days, from some serener region, which meet instantly the ideal of all minds, and run on afterwards, and forever, in the current of the human heart. We can now no more conceive of a world without Excelsior than of a world without the Iliad, the Comus, or the Midsummer Night's Dream. It has expressed in the happiest and briefest way what many minds in the age had been trying in vain to express."--Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 2d ed., Edin., 258, 259. 

But to return to our American critics: 

"Of all our poets, Longfellow best deserves the title of artist. He has studied the principles of verbal melody, and rendered himself master of the mysterious affinities which exist between sound and sense, word and thought, feeling and expression. This tact in the use of language is probably the chief cause of his success. There is an aptitude, a gracefulness, and vivid beauty, in many of his stanzas, which at once impress the memory and win the ear and heart."--R. W. GRISWOLD: Poets and Poetry of America, 16th ed., Phila., 1855. 355. 

"We shall only say that he is the most popular of American poets, and that this popularity may safely be assumed to contain in itself the elements of permanence, since it has been fairly earned, without any of that subservience to the baser tastes of the public which characterizes the quack of letters. His laurels honourably gained and gently worn. Without comparing him with others, it is enough if we declare our conviction that he has composed poems which will live as long as the language in which they are written."--J. RUSSELL LOWELL: N. Amer. Rev., 69, 215. 

"The secret of his popularity as a poet is probably that of all similar popularity--namely, the fact that his poetry expresses a universal sentiment in the simplest and most melodious manner. Each of his most noted poems is the song of a feeling common to every mind in moods into which every mind is liable to fall. Thus, a Psalm of Life, Footsteps of Angels, To the River Charles, Excelsior, The Bridge, The Gleam of Sunshine, The Day is Done, The Old Clock on the Stairs, The Arrow and the Song, The Fire of Driftwood, Twilight, The Open Window, are all most adequate and inexpressibly delicate renderings of quite universal emotions. There is a humanity in them which is irresistible in the fit measures to which they are wedded. If some elegiac poets have strung rosaries of tears, there is a weakness of woe in their verses which repels; but the quiet, pensive thought,--the twilight of the mind, in which the little facts of life are saddened in view of their relation to the eternal laws, time and change,--this is the meditation and mourning of every manly heart, and this is the alluring and permanent charm of Longfellow's poetry."--GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS: Sketch of Longfellow, in Homes of American Authors, N. York, 1853, 282-283. 

The following list of translations of a number of Longfellow's works will interest the reader: 

In Italian: 

Evangelina, tradotta da Pietro Rotondi, Firenza, 1857. 

In German:

In French:

Those who desire to peruse critical dissertations (in addition to the many already indicated) on the works and genius of this popular author can refer to--1. Herrig's Handbuch der Nordamerikanischen National literatur. 2. Allgemeine Zeitung. 3. Revue des Deux Mondes. 4. Journal des Débats. 5. Lon. Athenæum, 1835, 148,--(Lit. in the Nineteenth Century: America.) 6. Lon. Athenænum, 1844, 8-9. 7. Eclectic Review, 4th ser., xxvi. 710. 8. Fraser's Mag., April, 1855. 9. Dubl. Univ. Mag., xxxv. 461. 10. New Monthly Mag., (copied in Bost. Liv. Age,) xxxix. 417. 11. Amer. Whig Rev., xii. 359. 12. South. Lit. Mess., vi. 230. 13. Do., viii. 150. 14. Do., xi. 92. But we must not conclude without giving the promised quotation respecting Longfellow, from Cardinal Wiseman's Lecture on the Home Education of the Poor. Thus it runs:

"There is no greater lack in English literature than that of a poet of the people, -- of one who shall be to the labouring-classes of England what Goethe is to the peasant of Germany. He was a true philosopher who said, 'Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.' There is one writer who approaches nearer than any other to this standard, and he has already gained such a hold on our hearts that it is almost unnecessary for me to mention his name. Our hemisphere cannot claim the honour of having brought him forth; but still he belongs to us, for his works have become as household words wherever the English language is spoken. And, whether we are charmed by his imagery, or soothed by his melodious versification, or elevated by the high moral teachings of his pure muse, or follow with sympathizing hearts the wanderings of Evangeline, I am sure that all who hear my voice will join with me in the tribute I desire to pay to the genius of Longfellow." 

Thus have we seen the poet's praise chanted alike by stern reviewer and gentle lady, by lowly critic and lordly prelate. But, as we cast a glance at the table where our books are piled in "learned confusion" around us, we are silently reminded that our pleasing task is not yet finished. The poet's bays are entitled to another wreath, and we, shall not withhold it. It was promised by the wisest of men that he who was "diligent in his business" should "stand before kings;" and--laborious in the great duty of accumulating and distributing knowledge, laborious in the cause of humanity, of freedom, and of truth--the poet, scholar, and philanthropist of Cambridge has not failed of this reward also. 

In 1855 the Rev. J. C. Fletcher took a number of specimens of American literature, art, and manufactures to the capital of Brazil, where he was permitted to exhibit them in the National Museum. They were first visited by the Emperor Dom Pedro II., whose knowledge of literature is as remarkable as his attainments in science. In the work entitled Brazil and the Brazilians, (by Rev. Messrs. Kidder and Fletcher,) Mr. F. gives an account of his majesty's visit; and to this narration (furnished us by Mr Fletcher in advance of the publication of his volume) it is owing that to the many golden opinions of Mr. Longfellow already recorded we are able to add that of the monarch of Brazil: 

"He [Dom Pedro II.] approached the table where were the books presented by Parry & McMillan. He opened the Homes of the American Authors, and surprised me by his knowledge of our literature. He made remarks on Irving, Cooper, and Prescott, showing an intimate acquaintance with each. His eye falling upon the name of Longfellow, he asked me, in great haste and eagerness, 'Monsieur Fletcher, avez-vous les poëmes de M. Longfellow?' It was the first time that I ever saw in Dom Pedro II. an enthusiasm which in its earnestness and simplicity resembled the warmth of childhood when about to possess itself of some long-cherished object. I replied, 'I believe not, your majesty.' 'Oh,' said he, 'I am exceedingly sorry, for I have sought in every bookstore of Rio de Janeiro for Longfellow, and I cannot find him. I have a number of beautiful morceaux from him; but I wish the whole work, I admire him so much.' Mr. Fletcher afterward presented him with the Poets aud Poetry of America, informing the emperor that it contained some choice selections from the American poet whom he so much admired, and whom he called 'my Longfellow.' Afterward, at the palace of S. Christopher, when Mr. F. took leave of the emperor, the latter said to him, 'When you return to your country, have the kindness to say to Mr. Longfellow how much pleasure he has given me, and be pleased to tell him combien je l'estime, combien je l'aime."' 

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