Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1880-02-13
VOL. LII. NEW SERIES, VOL. NNVI.
Written Tor tAe Free Press and Tin
Henry Waisworth Lclsfellow.

depended upon. said that the gener:
Judgment ranked them in this order
Bryant, Halleck, Dana, Sprague, Long
fellow and Willis. In his own opinio
the list should stand: Longfellow. Bry
ant, Halleck, Willis, Sprague and Dan
and there were two or th;Ne unmel
toned names which he should put abov
that of Longfellow. without considering
1t very high praise Eheu The flying yeai
have rcleGated the gods Of the htcrar,
armament of tha. day to the shades. On
or two have gained the Immortality of tn
readinG-hoOks of one or two more ther
remains lingering tradition that the
once lived and wrote bu. the majorit
have passed into the everlasting rcpose O
Duycbinck' Cyclopadia and their work.
have followed them There were brav
men before Agamemnon but the presen
generation has but faint remembrance o
them. "Ah, poor gentleman, there Is III
saying how soon he may get his head abov'
water again, said the Frenchman, whe'
asked why he so reverentially uncovered
and bowed before the statue of Jupiter
As hopeless resurrection would be tha
of most of the poets we have named an,
their conceners of the Knickcrbocker era
Never again VIII We see such literary
epoch aa that. with its cdor Of genlallty
Everybody and everything WAS genial
them. its intense dissatisfaction, Its
spirit Of mutual admiration, its provln'
cialism, its poverty. 1t required the
shock and the thunders OF tho civil wal
as il an earthquake rcn,
The hearthstOnes OF 4 continent
to raise this country from province to {
nation, u improve and elevate and emo
bic its literature The knickerbockei
era closed at the precise date when the
first mutterings of the war were heard
BRYANT died but the other day, full ol
wears and hunors. and is sure of long
remembrance. Halleck wrote one or two
lood-stirring poems Dana wrote "Ihe
Buccauter :" Willis-of all men-wrote
some Scriptural pieces which are not now
regarded as improvements on the original
prose Sprague was once famous as the
author Of few prize odes--but who reads
them now? And If these, the great men
/ Of that epoch-serarated from US not Sc
much by lapse of years rs by force oi
events-have passed out OF knowledge,
what shall we say Of the dU 0IihoreS-
the great multitude q poetasters who
with
oaten stop Or pastoral reed
couIted the muses., or as the good gray
poet" most American of Americans, says,
Gifted their bnrbaric yawps:" For few
years
Eari nantes in gargiie vasto,
| and then the final catastrophe.
But while most of the writers Of three
decades ago havo passed into well-de-
/ served oblivion. there is one, happier than
] l. .r-hnSa fame has
creased as the years rolled on and whose
constituency has widcned until it now in
cludes the whole Englsh-speaking world.
This is Henry Wadsworth Longfcllow,
who this month passes his I3rd year. The
outlines Of his life. like those OF most
| literary men Of these happier days OF
ours, are brief and tho dates few. He
was born in Portland. Maine, on the 18th
| Of February. 1907. of a family long prom
| incn: in the affairs of that Commonwealth.
1t WAS OF English descent, the poet an
cestors having emigrated to tins country
| from Hampshire In l61l. HIS moth
er was descendant Of John Alden
Far -saired azurc-eyed, with delicate Saxon com
Having the lew Of his youth, aai tho beauty there
Whom St Gregory saw. anI exclaimed, 'Sot An
Youncesi Of ali Vas lie OF the men who came in the
May Flower"
Mr.. Longfellow was graduated from
Bowdoin College in 1925 and in the yeal
following was appointed professor oi
modern languages in his Alma Mater.
| Topreparc himself more fully for hls dutles
he went abroad, returning III 1929. In 1881
| hewas married and i'll 1885 he succeeded
/ the famoa, historian of Spanish htera-
tura rs professor Of belles-let.res at Har-
ward College The same year he took q
second trip to Europe, losing there his
! wife (at Rotterdam) under peculiarly DIS
| tressing circumstances In 1872 he made
Il third foreign trip. In 1913 he re-lnar-
ried and in 1854 he retired from his pro-
fessorship. In 1887, he bought and has
ever since dwelt III that historic old man
sion which President Washington occu-
pied rs headquarters while in Cambridge
and which, we believe, had formerly been
occupied by Sparks the historian and
Everett the orator Here in this pleasant
and stately home he has passed from n
vigorous manhood to ripe and serene
old age. Such are the leading dates IN an
| eduable and uneventful life spent IN the
pursuit Of letters.
Mr. Longfellow began to write when
very Young, and contributed number oi
youthful poems and essays to the Boston
| UIticl Literary Gazctte, long since dead
and gone, and that foster-mother OF Amer
lean literature the North american Re-
uicw. In 1893 he published his first
book, translation from the Spanish, en-
titled ''Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique.
Two Years later he published book OF
travels. called "Outre Mer = and in 1889
a romance, Hyperion. His prose Is as
musical and delicate and beautiful as his
verse. There is about it a subtle, fascin-
ating charm ard an unapproachableg grace.
| Modelled somewhat on the style Of the
writers Of the glorious Elizabethan re.
naissance (whom Longfellow loved and
studied), it possesses something Of their
clear and pellucid dictlon, their ''sweet-
ness and hight" As giving an example
Of his prose style at its best, We can not
refrain, familiar though il may be, from
| quoting the passage describing the awak-
eninG 10 a new life Of Paul flemming.
the purposcloss iGlcrof Hyperion. After
roaming through Europe seeking sur
cease of soTrow,' Paul comes to the VII
lag. of St Gilgen, in whose chapel
He read on Il marble tablet III tn,
chhi'i WILL 'ilIS Hl'IS ui'i
Look not mournfuily INTO the fast'
1t comes not back AGAIN. Wisely improve
the Present. 1t IS thine, 20 1or'h t'
meet the sEadowy Future without Zeal
and with IL mani y heart
1t seemed to him as II the Unknown
tenant Of that grave had opened ms hps
Of dust and spoken TO hlm the words o.
consolation winch ms soul heede" ;'h'
which II" friend had YET spoken In
moment the nngnisif OF ms thoughts WIZ
still. The stone was rolled away IRON
the door "i hlS heart dratil was h'
longer there, but an ANGEL 'l"'h'I II
white. Men sometimes Z" cow
mt" tombs, with paiiihl l"hSiiS' 70 "',
mold once NOR" the faces "i tieir h pdii
Ell friends ana as 'ii'y gaze upon 'i4ei''
lying there SO peacefully WIN me sem
blancc that they wore on cafth, tile S"ee
breath of Heaven touches tlem ana TN
features crumble and iai to%cthef' ah'
are but dust 30 dld ms soui theh de
scend for the last time lhtp me Srra