Such is his ideal of the poet's functions, and he is himself the best illustration of their noble employment. As a youth, he touched indeed a golden lyre in groves and by streams, by the light of stars, on Alpine pinnacles straining toward the voice which cried Excelsior!" Excelsior!" He sang the beautiful psalm of life" what the heart of the young man said to the psalmist;" with bated breath he heard the "footsteps of angels," "when the forms of the departed enter at the open door." Then the music changes. As a bearded man he stirs the listening crowd in the market-place with his tearful story of Evangeline, addressed to all hearts; with his "Building of the Ship," addressed to all patriots; with his Indian song of "Hiawatha." Then as a gray old man, like him who sang in cathedrals dim and vast, he took up the chant of the mystery of Christ; he sang in English accordant with the terza rima of Dante of hell, purgatory and paradise; and at last, on the fiftieth anniversary of the day of his graduation, he sounded for himself and his classmates a farewell to his alma mater in his Morituri te Salutamus." There was no discord in the changes of his poet-life. He always sang to "charın, to strengthen and to teach," and every ear was intent to catch the harmonious notes. There is no affectation of hidden meanings: he takes the serious, tender thoughts of our comprofanity and puts them into the fittest words so that when in our moods we think them again.we speak them in his own language. This may not be in itself the highest poetry, but it is better, as the true singer is more useful and more satisfying than the poet.The simple singer gives counsel, sympathy, consolation, instruction. Instead of being forced into an attitude. of intellectual acuteness and resistance, we go out to meet him; we crave and accept. Such is an explanation of the success of Evangeline." It is an American subject; it is a sentimental subject-the exile and wanderings of two lovers of that Acadian band expatriated by the British; it is a pastoral, pleasing by the simple charms of the quaint country-side and country-personages of the French colonists, pure in sentiment, liberal in religion, full of gospel charity. In addition to all this, it presents a curious study in prosody-the use of hexameters, always so doubtful in English and by no means entirely successful in the poet's hands. It may indeed be claimed as the most ambitious of his works, and yet it can hardly be doubted that he owed the suggestion to Goethe's "Hermann and Dorothea." And yet what would our literature be without Evangeline"? 66 Another tour-de-force, so gracefully managed and so strikingly presented that there is nothing disagreeable in the stratagem, is the "Song of Hiawatha," in which we have somewhat of the Indian mythology, not departing much from the authorities, but securing attention from its national and popular interest. The somewhat unusual measure the trochaic tetrameter-seems not illapplied to the utterances of Indian wisdom and pathos. It contains a few descriptions of men and women more grotesque than ideal, too theatrical to be real, and yet with some exquisite touches of that nature which makes the whole world kin. Unlike most poets who make their doubt ful first essays in translation, Longfellow | pression of their thoughts, veil them in figcounts among his most finished and effect- ures of speech and forms of rhetoric which ive pieces versions of European poems which require the reader to study before he can undo more than justice to the originals. Such derstand and enjoy. To use a figure, they is "The Children of the Lord's Supper," pose for purpose; they count upon the effect from Bishop Tegnér; such his "Into the Si- of a rapt air, a look of inspiration, a wand lent Land," the "Coplas de Manrique," the of mystery. This is to be observed in By"Blind Girl of the Castel Cuillé," by Jasmin, ron and in Thomas Moore. Such is often the "the last of the troubadours." Everybody Everybody case with Wordsworth in his forced simpliciknows "a maiden fair to see," but every- ty; such is eminently true of Browning in body does not "beware!" Of his Of his BuildBuild- his larger poems; of Tennyson in his "Two ing of the Ship" the enthusiastic popular Voices, Voices," "The Talking Oak," and even in verdict is heard from a thousand voices as those exquisite poems "Enone" and "A they chant, Dream of Fair Women." This fault is never Longfellow's; he comes to you at once presenting his clear thought, and thus he reaches the hearts of men as with the salutation of a friend and the hearty grasp of a loving brother. Thus genial, pure, dignified, he uses neither force nor legerdemain to bring you into his moods; what has affected him acts upon you-now a star-influence, now "the trailing garments of the night" and its solemn voices, and anon the domestic hearth in a thousand homes "when the shadows of the fitful firelight dance upon the parlor wall." It is probably due to this simplicity of expression that so many of his best pieces have been so easily parodied. "Thou too sail on, O Ship of State! With all its hopes for future years, It is with no feeling of detraction that we cannot fail to observe how it must have been suggested by the poem of Schiller, "Das Lied von der Glocke " ("The Song of the Bell"). As the bell is founded the ship is built; the fortunes of multitudes are figured in both; and, while upon the bell "Concordia" is inscribed, the name of the good ship, built of "cedar of Maine and Georgia pine," is "The Union." With these features the resemblance ceases the handling is his own and the diction simply perfect. Most liberal in his religious views, Longfellow has constantly felt the divine life, and his poetry abounds in a love for the beautiThe genial nature of the poet is every- ful in the ritual and ceremonial of worship. where adorned, though never overloaded, Like Milton, he enjoys "the dim religious with the charms of an extensive scholarship light of storied windows richly dight," the and the skill of a consummate rhetorician, and apostles carved in stone at Nuremberg, the yet he is always simple and intelligible to all. great bells which rejoice at weddings and Unfortunately, much of the apparent mys- mourn at funerals. He had but little draticism of poetry is found in the fact that matic power. His only drama-The Spanmany poets, not content with the natural ex-ish Student—although it abounds in beauti ful descriptions and effective monologues, was perhaps never intended for the stage. Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand To lead us with a gentle hand Thither, on the 24th of March, 1882, after a life of purity, peace, benevolence and high imaginings, the poet was led with gentle hand to join in "the seven-fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies," the echoes of which he had caught on earth and discoursed of to his fellow-men. Of his prose-works little need be said. They are, in Outre Mer, Hyperion, autobiographic, and thus far valuable; in Kavanagh, descriptive of New England life. His lectures at Harvard he utilized in preparing his Poets and Poetry of Europe, which presents a sketch of each national literature and language with illustrations by the best translations, many of them from his own pen. The work, while it presents the result of his studies and travels, explains the beautiful facility with which he has touched many of the in course of publication by his publishers, Messrs. Houghlanguages of Europe in his own poetry. After a life of singular completeness and of an ideal happiness-checkered, indeed, with a few great sorrows-Longfellow waited for the gentle clasp which should lead him into the silent land of which he had in low sung and tender notes which have at once saddened and strengthened those whose loved ones have gone before and will stand at its portal to beckon us all in God's good time : "Into the silent land! Ah! who shall lead us thither? Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, Thither-oh, thither, Into the silent land? "Into the silent land To you, ye boundless regions Of all perfection, tender morning visions Of beauteous souls, the future's pledge and band! Who in life's battle firm doth stand Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms Into the silent land. "O land! O land! For all the broken-hearted The mildest herald by our fate allotted HENRY COPPÉE. NOTE. A beautiful serial edition of the poet's works is ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. TH THE RED MAN. HERE is in the fate of these unfortunate beings much to awaken our sympathy and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment, much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities, much in their characters which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? By a law of their nature, they seem destined to a slow but sure extinction. Everywhere, at the approach of the white man, they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone for ever. They pass mournfully by us, and they return no more. Two centuries ago the smoke of their wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every valley from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests, and the hunter's trace and dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened to the listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down, but they wept not. They would soon be at rest in fairer regions, where the Great Spirit dwelt, in a home prepared for the brave, beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived, truer men never drew the bow. They had courage and fortitude and sagacity and perseverance beyond most of the human race. They shrank from no dangers, and they feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave. But where are they? Where are the villagers and warriors and youth, the sachems and the tribes, the hunters and their families? They have perished. They are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No, nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power-a moral canker which has eaten into their heartcores, a plague which the touch of the white man communicated, a poison which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. step. The white man is upon their heels for terror or despatch, but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears, they utter no cries, they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both, which chokes all utterance, which has no aim or method. It is courage absorbed in despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them-no, never. Yet there lies not between us and them an impassable gulf. They know and feel that there is for them still one remove farther, not distant nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of their race. Reason as we may, it is impossible not to read in such a fate much that we know not how to interpret, much of provocation to cruel deeds and deep resentments, much of apology for wrong and perfidy, much of pity mingling with indignation, much of doubt and misgiving as to the past, much of painful recollections, much of dark forebodings. JUDGE STORY. 12 ful descriptions and effecti perhaps never intended fo Of his prose-works 1 They are, in Outre Mer. graphic, and thus far val. descriptive of New En: tures at Harvard he uti' Poets and Poetry of E a sketch of each nation guage with illustration lations, many of them The work, while it studies and travels, ex; cility with which he h languages of Europe i pre |