The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-01 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Song of Hiawatha, By Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. David Bogue.
Opening this new poem by Professor Longfellow
with eager expectation, we have closed it with the
bitterest disappointment. Yet there will probably
be those among the more infatuated admirers of
our author's genius—such are the diversities, or, as
we should rather call them, the perversities of taste
and judgment—who may regard "The Song of
Hiawatha" with wondering. admiration. As there
have been astounding individuals who,tosay the least
of it, have affected delight with the "Casa Guidi
Windows" of Mrs. Browning, and the " Egeria" of
Dr. Mackay, and the "Maud" of Mr. Tennyson,
and the "Christmas Eve and Easter Day" of the
author of " Paracelsus." When everybody else
endowed with a particle of discernment has viewed
these later offshoots of " Apollo's laurel bough"
with regrets both poignant and unaffected—sigh-
ing for the days when, in lieu of such mystical
twaddle and didactic dullness, their senses were
gladdened with the music of some tender love-
chaunt from " Kat:lrina to Camoens," or of some
resounding " Voice from the Crowd," or of some
lovely glimpse of the green shams of "Sumner
Chase," or of some trilling, thrilling, dainty, deli-
cious snatch of melody from the delectable sceretas
of " Pippo. Passes." Woe is me ! the times are gone
by when we could listen to such songs as these from
the lips of our contemporary poets. Instead of
which we are doomed to hearken to bedlamite
caterwaulings, such as provoked from the humo-
rous indignation of the bard of the Scottish Cava-
liers the incomparable spasmodic satire of " Fir-
millian." And the contagion has floated alas 1 it
seems all the way across the broad Atlantic, in-
fecting even the vigorous and masculine intellect
of our hitherto lucid and delightful Longfellow.
The incoherent, and as it seemed to us here and
there profane, if not actually blasphemous, mystery
of The Golden Legend," constituted the first
notes of discord from that noble and majestic orgat
—the poetic genius from which had previously
emanated the animating intonations of " The
Psalm of Life," and the hexameters of " Evange-
line." And now follows a harsher discord still in
this prolonged and discordant howl of " Tho Song
of Hiawatha." A song written from first to last
in octo-syllabic verso without rhyme—or rea-
son ! The dreariest example of a wholly in-
tolerable monotony ! Altogether the scene opened
up to the reader's view by Professor Longfellow,
through the lattice of his new poem, instead of
being some verdant depth of a " forest primeval,"
with " the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,"
or some breezy mountain crag, high up among the
clouds echoing back the clarion-cry of "Excelsior"
—is, so to speak, after all, little better than a
grey, level flat, or, as the Poet Laureate has it in
that one dismal verso—

" A level waste, a rounding grey."
Such to us literally is the aptist s3mbol of " The
Song of Hiawatha." The catalogue of Homer's
ships was as nothing to the list of jaw-breaking
tribes celebrated here and there in this strangely
uninteresting production by Professor Longfellow.
Listen to him, for example, as he sings almost at
the commencement his Red Indian Epic of Hia-
watha—

"Down the rivers, o'er the prairies,
Came the warriors of the nations,
Came the Delawares and Mohawks,
Came the Choctaws and Camanches,
Came the Shoshonies and Blackfeet,
Came the Pawnees and Oinawbaws,
Came the Mandans and Th;cotabs,
Came the Hurons and Ojibways "
Whew ! enough in all conscience—we break off in
sheer exhaustion. However, let us try again—
" nothing venture nothing have "—a little further
on by way of quotation : the poet is chanting the
glories of the " fat and lazy" Shawondasee—
" He it was who sent the wood-birds,
Sent the Ov'ehee, the rob:n,
Sent the blue-bird, the 0 waissa,
Sent the Shavvshaw, sent the swallow,
Sent the wild-goose, Wawa, northward,
Sent the melons and tobacco,
And the grapes la purple clusters "
Whew ! again we draw breath and pause in our
transcription, following the hero a little later on,
when—

" Forth into the forest straightway
All alone walked Hiawatha
Proudly, with his bow and arrows ;
And the birds sang round him, o'er him,
Do nut shoot us, Hiawatha!'
Sang the Ooechee, the robin,
Sang the blue-bird, th Owaissa,
Do not shocA us, Hiawatha !'
Up tbe.oak-tree, close beside him,
'Sprang the squirrel, Adjidautno,
In and out among the branches,
Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree,
Laughed, and said between his laughing,
`Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!'
And the rabbit from his pathway
Leaped aside, and at a distance
Sat erect upon his haunches,
Half in fear and half in frolic,
Saying to the little hunter,
'Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!'
And so forth, and so forth—over and ever--in
(we must fairly and bluntly out with it at once)—
" damnable iteration I " The poem throughout
is one long series of repetitions, odiously dull and
drearily monotonous. Hero they are taken by
chance from any single page we may open the book
at by way of apt, though purely accidental, illus-
tration. Say page sixteen :
" Could not bear the heat and laughter,
Could not beetr the merry singing,

Stamped upon the crusted snow drifts,
Stamped upon the lakes and rivers.

Made the snow upon them harder,
Made the ice upon them thicker.

To come forth and wrestle with him,
To come forth and wrestle naked.

IVrestled all night with the north wind,
Wrestled naked on the moorlands.

Till his fainting breath grew fainter,
Till his frozen grasp grew duller.

To the kingdom of Wabasso,.
To the land i,f the White Rabbit,
Hearing still the gusty laughter,
Bearing Shiugebis, the diver.

In the drowsy dreamy sunshine,
/24 the never-ending F tuumer."
All at page sixteen--iterations, repetitions, “plen-
tiful as blackberries." Opening this book again
haphazard, at page eighty, we find—
" Little heeded he their jesting,
Little cared be for their insults.

•
. .
. .
On his head were plumes of swan's down,
On his heel wore tails of foxes.

. .
To the sound of flutes and singing,,,
To the sound of drums and voices."
Surely sufficient ! Moro than sufficient. The
monotone which seems, as it were, to be the veri-
table key-note of the poem, becomes wearisome be-
fore many pages have been turned-0, BO weari-
some ! We throw the book aside at last, sick to
the very heart of Wawa the wild goose, and Shrt-
shu-gah the blue heron, of Mushkodasa the grouse,
panudekhews
etoiw, of 3,nci
aik the plover, of Rwasind and Pau
puk-ke ii
and
eke of Hiawatha.
S(-dance elsewhere in search
t.forrreoliwel afteras we
ltaumr n u
lamentable
no
tarble and unexpected an in-
fliction—sorrowful that a man so eminently gifted
with poetic genius as Professor Longfellow should,
hbyonourableutohueraibssiue
of Hiawatha,"
ereop .f such .utation
a production as this "Song
so deplorably damage his high and

----
„ VACANCIES, APPOINTMENTS, AND PROMOTIONS 111 TIM
CIVIL SERVICE.—Home Department—The office of Resi-
dent Sub-Inspector for Ireland is vacant by the death of
Mr. J. P. Hudson. War Department—Mr. Seymour
Thellusson has been appointed Private Secretary to Col.
Mundy. Mr. Win. de Burgh has been appointed Private
Secretary to Mr. F. Peel. Ordnance Medical hDepart-
ment—Senior Surgeon Alexander Ogilvie, M•Ds yt,hl.
been appointed Deputy-Inspector-General ofl it: the
British Museum—A Nacancy has been created.ted Books,
office of Keeper in the Department of r:irru;ner. Coast
by the death of Mr. Leopold James . •
(a) has
Guard —lnspecting Lieutenant John Coleman
to command the
been removed from Stranraer,
previously
removed from
Strangford district, vice R. Wilcox,
Chief Officer Thos. C. Hodgson hies Lieut. J. Strettrell,
B•,
ieviously removed.
Kingsdown to Walton a._
W.GC.PFovrsyth has been appointed
The office of inspecting lieu-
tenantremoved. Commander W.
inspecting Commander.
by the death of Lieut. Cha.s. Blytb.
Guard Station, Killybegs, county
has been appointed a clerk ii
Donegal,o f
itsh e v
aCccsaestt
Customs—Mr' T'
Exports Office in London. Mr. R.
the Imports and
appointed a clerk in the J ' Offi
erquer a ce
Keane has been I ffan has London. Mr. J. A been appointed a clerk in
Dicks. Mr. E. Wastall has been appointe
in Lon, Delany
the L mdon
a
clerk in the Long Room in London. Mr. C. H. Wood.
ley, has been appointed a clerk in the Comptroller Geue.
rat's Office in London.—Civil Service Gazette.
THE CIVIL SERVICE IN THE EAST.--Mr. G. Craig,
Cbief Accountant, Land Transport Corps, and Tempo.
rary Commissariat Clerk IL Rivaz, have joined the staff
of the army.;-. Deputy Assistant Commissar General J.
W. Woodley, has obtained the acting rank of Assistant
Corunaissary-General from Sept. 1. Colour Sergeaer;nt:d
Pringle,
a res, vice
Royal Sappers and Miners, has been PP
Deputy Assistant Commissary of Engineers'tito Clerk.
Nicholls, deceased. M. J. M'Kettrick, Ordnancetlnspector
has joined the staff of the army.
Assistant
taxi of cholera on the IGth
of
Nov.n
the 170, and Dispen.
General of Hospitals Alexander M‘GrliocPrtuindgYied at Scu-
day.—Civil
I Fier Beveridge died of cholera. on the
' Surgeon Wood died of cholera o
same
1 Service Gazette.