Middletown transcript., 1882-03-31
HENRY w.LoNGFELLow.
A PAPER PREPARED BY MISS ADDIE
HAZARD AND READ BEFORE THE
IRVING LYcEUM, OF MIDDLEToWN,
MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 9TH.

Wadsworth Longfellow, celebrated his
10th birthday on the 9th of February.
and the time seems opportune to note
some facts in the life of this veteran
writer. Ithas been generally conceded
that Longfellow is the most popular of
the American poets, not only at home.
but in the United Kingdom and the
British colonies as well. Though a
man of books, Mr.. Longfellow has
lived outside of the rigid barrier of ex-
cluslVeness within which many literary
folks inclose themselves. His poetry
makes him known to everybody, not as
a member OF a cultured class, but as a
gentle, sympathetic, refined, tender
hearted and generous thinking man.
The man and the poet are one in the
popular estimation and they love both
him and his verses-these because they
are revelation of such sweet, gentle,
wise and loving manhood as every one
enjoys to find.
This poet was born at Portland, Me-,
Oh the 9th of February, 1907. His
father was an attorney-at-law. In 1921
he entered Bowdoin College and was
graduated therein four years later.
After reading law few months in his
fathers office, friends who knew his
genius provided him the opportunity of
an occupation more congenial. Thev
offered him the position of Professor of
Modern Languages at Bowdoin, one en-
tirely proper to his bent. To qualify
himself the better for its duties. Mr..
Longfellow spent the three years and a
half Immediately succeeding his accept
ance Of the offer, in Europe, visiting
France, Italy, Germany, Holland and
England for this purpose. He returned
in 1929 and began his professorship.
which continued until 1885. when the
death of Mr.. George Ticknor, who held
the corresponding position in Harvard
University, resulted in his acceptance
of the vacant professorship in that emf
nent seat of learning. In the autumn
of 1886 he began to teach in Harvard
and taught there eighteen years, when
he was succeeded by James Russell
Lowell. Since that time he has made
two trips to Europe, one in 1842, and
the second in 1868 and 1869. On the
last occasion he was made Doctor of
Laws by the University of Cambridge,
England, and a Doctor of Civil Law by
that of Oxford, in the same country.
In 1873 he was elected a member of the
Russian Academy of Science, and in
1877, of the Spanish Academy. His
works have been translated into the
Continental languages of Europe. The
northern tourist, if he journeys toward
Boston, and he is most likely to be at
tracted to the Club will always in
quire for the home of this illustrious
poet, and will be directed to a beautiful
residence in the city of Cambridge, al
most one with Boston, "an old-fash-
ioned country house, embosomed in
spacious lawn" Gigantic elms cast a
shadow across the sweeping grass, and
if the season be gentle spring or the
bright June of the year, the scent of
lilac-trees in full blossom comes to you
sweetly on the morning air, and the be-
holder feels like entering the gates
and lingering there amid the fragrance
of flowers and singing of merry birds,
thinking, doubtless, this an appropriate
dwelling place for one so fond of the
beautiful. The antique portico, with
its Corinthian columns and classic bal
ustrade which stretches along the west
side of the house, is almost hidden by
vines and Towering shrubs. 1t COM
mands soft, rural landscape, the dis
tant hills beyond Cambridge, and the
gray waters of the river Charles, "steal-
ing onward to the sea.'' You enter
spacious hall paved with black and
white tiles, and as you glance up the
broad staircase you see the old clock
on the stairs.n
Half way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands,
The house in which the poet lives
was built by an old royalist, who car
ried with him over the sea the Georgian
architecture, as well as his theory of
the divine right Of kings, but it is
better known as having been inhabited
by the great hero of American Inde-
pendence, than as the home of the most
widely read of our poets. No English
speaking poet but himself has ever done
for the English peasantry what Goethe
did for the Germans. Earlier poets,
like Scott and Byron, addressed a
different class of readers, and the more
modern poems of Tennyson appeal to a
cultivated and aesthetic taste but have
not his touching pathos in treating
common subject like the "Village
Blacksmith" nor do they awake the
tender interest which the most simple
must feel as they follow the hopeless
wanderings of Evangeline. =" The
charm Of purity, truth, the worth of
patriotism, the grandeur of patience,
the beauty of woman's enduring love,
the nobility which, in his Muse, is
seen to underlie everyday scenes and
common occupations, all stamp him as
the poet Of the English common people.
He is, indeed, a poet whose fame dig
nifes his native land, and whose pro-
ductions adorn and invariably benefit
human nature.
Won BULow, the pianist, says: eff
l stop practice for one day notice it in
my playing; if stop two daysmy friends
notice it: if I stop three days the public