The Press.
London, England, 1855-11-17 00:00:00

1100

occasion, together with some other matters
touched on in this volume of great interest to
English readers.

1. The Song of Hiawatha. By H. W. Longfellow.
Author's Protective Edition. London :
Bogue.
2. Men and Women. By Robert Browning.
Two Vols. London : Chapman and Hall.
Boni Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Browning have
their admirers. It is only fit that special
poets should have special readers, and we
shall not, for that reason, attempt to antici-
pate the judgment which will be passed on
these performances by Longfellowites and
Browningites. In neither case are the poems
much to our taste. We conceive that their
authors have adopted a vicious system ; that
they have mistaken affectation for originality ;
and that their works partake of the peculiar
faults of that school which conceives itself
privileged by virtue of its genius to emanci-
pate itself from the laws of both rhyme and
reason. We can, as in Mr. Tennyson's last
poem, see occasional beauties in these volumes,
though rarer and of a less striking kind than
in "Maud ;" but, as coming from poets of some
reputation, they seem to us very unsatisfactory
proofs of the poetic talent and taste of our
age. But our readers shall decide for them-
selves.
1. The " Song of Hiawatha " is intended, Mr.
Longfellow tells us, as a kind of Indian Edda.
" It is founded," he says, "on a tradition
" prevalent among the North American In-
" dians, of a personage of miraculous birth,
" who was sent among them to clear their
" rivers, forests, and fishing-grounds, and to
" teach them the arts of peace." Hiawatha,
in fact, belongs to the heroic age of North
America, all his deeds being tinged with the
peculiar character of the Red Indian habits
and traditions. If we ask whence these stories
have been gained, Mr. Longfellow replies, in
the peculiar metre of his poem
should answer, I should tell you,
" From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotalas,
From the mountains, moors, and fenlands,
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes."
The father of Hiawatha is Mudjekeewis, the
great West-Wind—
Father of the Winds of Heaven.
His mother, the gentle Wenonah, is the
daughter of Nokomis, who
In the unremembered ages
From the full moon fell.
Deserted by the faithless West• Wind, We-
nonah dies, and Nokomis rears Hiawatha. His
first great feat, when he rises to manhood, is a
dreadful conflict with his father the West-
Wind, who, being immortal, cannot be con.
quered, and who tells his son that after death
he shall share the kingdom of the Winds with
him, and be ruler of the North-Wind, vice one
Kabibonokka, who appears to fill that station
at the opening of the poem. After this,
Hiawatha performs great feats in fasting,
sailing, and fishing, killing the sturgeon, the
king of fish. His greatest achievement seems
to have been the slaughter of a flock of crows
and ravens, who had conspired to waste his
corn-fields. Hiawatha was beforehand with
them :
He had risen before the daybreak,
He had spread o'er all the corn-fields
Snares to catch the black marauders,
And was lying now in ambush
In the neighbouring grove of pine-trees,
Waiting for the crows and blackbirds,
Waiting for the jays and ravens.
The marauders, When they came with " caw
and clamour," soon found themselves caught
in the snares of Hiawatha :
From his place of ambush came he,
Striding terrible among them,
And so awful was his aspect
That the bravest quailed with terror.
Without mercy he destroyed them
Right and left, by tens and twenties,
And their wretched, lifeless bodies
Hung aloft on poles for scarecrows
Round the consecrated corn-fields,
As a signal of his vengeance,
4.9 a warMau to marauders. •