The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-07-13
NUMBER 285.
LonEfeiiow at Cambridge.
coNFRRRNe THE DECREE OF LID,

cambridge Correspondence Londsn Tslsrys,b1
At Oxford Mr.. Longfellow will meet with n
more formal end stately weloome /; bat there Is.
think, certain approprai enes3 in the fact that
Cambridge should have taken the precedence in
comforting on him the freedom of the English re-
public letters Nothing, indeed. could be simpler
than the manner in which that honor has been be-
slowed. The ceremonial at the Senate House
was fxe6for two O'Clock, and about half an hour
before the time few groups of ladies' accOmpa-
MED by masters Of arts collected in the building.
undergraduates, as usual were eonspeuous by
their absence, and the galleries which run round
the Senate House, and which ere appropriated to
the students, hardly mustered a hundred ocou-
pants: The body of the hall was fairly filed with
the wives and daughters of the resident profess
sors and Futors, and with number Of the towns
people, who had dropped in 10 catch sight of
the author of "Evangelne." The Senate House
itself Is place too full Of hateful recoections to
all who have ever excursioned there 20 look
otherwise than hideous 20 nine Cambridge men
out Of ten but think even Indifferent and i'm
partial spectators must admit that IL has no pre-
teniion TO architectural beauty. AT two the pro-
ceediDgs commenced with most laudable punotu-
allty. The vice chancellor for the year Is DR..
Thompson, the master of Trinity, and though 10
those who studied under the reign of Whewell no
other master of Trinity can ever come up TO the
ideal Of what the master ought to be- vet, to a
more modern generation. DIR. Thompson doubtless
satisfied all the requirements of his ariuous post
The vice -ehancellor having taken his seat in the
chair at the end Of the hall, Mr.. Clark the public
orator presented TO him, in Latin speech, the
candidate for an honorary degree. Amid the score
or so Of heads OF houses, and other academic dig
ni'aries, conspicuous by their scarlet robes, the
one on whom all eyes we're turned was Henry
Wadsworth LongfeOw. In stature and figure
there was little TO attract attention to the oele-
briiy Of the day but the face was one which, /
think, would have caught the spectators glance
even If his attention had not been called to IL bV
the cheers which greeted LongfellO 3 appearances
in the robes Of an LII D. Long white silken hair
and beard of patriarchal length and Wilderness
81 n froob oolo 81
at him YOU had the feeling that The White Re9SH6t
hair aud beard were a mask, put on TO conceal a
young mans face, and that if the poet chose, he
could throw of the disguise and appear as a man
in the very prime and bloom of life. In the last
unfinished fragment which Nathaniel Hawthorne
ever wrote, he propounded the quaint theory that
youth and strength were the natural appendages
Of mortal life, and that the old men felt at times
a sort OF strange anomaly in the mere fact that
youth was no longer theirs. IL the doctrine thus
put forward in "Pansey" had in ii aught Of truth,
no man surely would feel its lesson more quietly
than Hawthcrnes friend and fellow laborer in the
world of letters. In LongfelOw's face the con-
trast-l might almost say the ilc0GsistencY-be-
tween the youth OF the of the spirit and the age
of the body seems to me singularly marked and
striking.
To a few well rounded Latin sentences the pub
lie orator recited the claims of the distinguished
visitor to the privilege of honorary degree The
names of " Biawatha" and a" EnOch Arden" and
" EvangelinGH sounded strangely amidst the sono-
rous periods of the Latin creation. When it was
ended Mr. Clark led Mr.. Longfelow to the vice
chancellor, with whom he exchangeda few words
of complimentary greeting; then the usual for
malties were gone through, with the exception Of
the oath, and the name of Longfellow wasadded
to the list of lustTious worthless recorded on the
muster roll of the graduates of Cambridge.
The small company of undergraduates cheered
loudly as the new LII. d. took his place amidst
the digntaries of the University; and then tho
regular busine IS of commencement was proceeded
with. Prize copies of Greek and Latin verse we're
recited-the former unDteligible, the latter Inau-
dible; and the wit, what passes for wit, of the
undergraduate audience was exercised on the
prize men who had been fortunate enough to win
q variety Of prizes for Latin compositions, unf0r-
tunate enough TO be called 70 recite their COM
positions in public. Everybody had got printed
copies Of the prize poems and in an academic au-
dience even the ladies prOfessed TO follow tbs
Greek and Latin poems. But there was general
expression of satisfaction, not confined to ladies'
or undergraduates, when the English prize poem
was rected ina tongue ineligible to. the Vulgar
and with rems9kable clearness of utterauce. As
TO the merits Of the poem, can only sayiit was
after the fashion of prize poems but Mr.. Long
fellow listened to it attentivey, and took an ac-
tive part in applauding the youthful bard as he
came up to receive the reward of his poetica eff
fusons. In France or Germany the writer of the
poem would have introduced some allusio n TO the
presence of the veteran poet thes hO1Ored guest
OF the day. But such departure from the written
letter would be foreign 10 the traditions Of Cam
bridge. So when the poem had been duly read,
as per copy, the ceremony ended; the undergrad
yates gave three cheers more for LongfellOw; the
crowd, such as it wac, dispersed in few minutes
and all was over.