Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-03-27
LoNGEELLoR AS A posr

DR.. Holmes makes the rsmark, in the
''Poet at the breakfast Table" that all
poets may be classified as either dark
meat or white-meat poets. If we were to
employ this mode of classification we
should be compelled to assign Longfellow
to the white-meat poets. His talents were
very great, his faculty of expression almost
perfect, his Imagination at once beautiful
and pure, his mechanical facility of execu-
ton scarcely equaled He never wrote
any slovenly verses. There are no doubt
some Of his poems which deserve the crltl-
cism Of thinness of thought, but even
these are always full OF melody and grace,
so that when the intelligence fails to be
taken by the thought expressed the mar
mony and correctness Of the vehicle confer
distinct qualifications upon the reader. Long
fellow was an accomplished liDguist, and
in none of his work is his art more con-
spicuously revealed than in his transla-
tions. These he has in almost all cases
elevated to the value and dignity of orig
inal compositions by the wonderful skill
with which he has reproduced the spirit
and form of the foreign authors. He was
the most popular poet of the century in all
the English-speaking countries, and this
fact is really creditable to the taste of the
age, since for once the majority did not
here choose an inferior writer for their
idol. The merit of his great popularity,
however, must be sought elsewhere than in
| the accomplishments which commend him
to the cultured minority. 1t consists in the
limpid clearness with which he says what
ever he has to say, and with which he
clothes materials familiar to Humanity
everywhere. For it is certain that all
popularity is a matter of sympathy, and
that the power of expressing the common
thought of most men so as to enable them
to recognize this thought again, constitutes
the principal charm of such poetry to the
majority.
Longfellow' poetry was all noble in its
way. He never published line which
was not indicative of mind too large and
solid not to be above all uncleanness of
thought or suggestion. A dignifed and
manly melancholy often tinges his verse,
and it is be sharply distinguished from the
unlnanly wailings which some modern poets
have affected. Yet, though Longfellow de-
serves the title of the most popular poet
of his century, it cannot be said that he
voiced the highest intellectual strivings of
his generation, or that he reflected even in
the faintest way thoss waves of partly
audacious, partly despairing emotion,
which have given to distinct section of
Nineteenth Century Literature so pecu.
liar a dependency. His bookings before
were always duly subdued and restrained.
Even when las in his short poem entitled
"Epimetheus, or the Poets After
thought he ventures to touch upon
transcendental ideas, his utterances are
cautious and carried but little way.
That he had in him more fire than often
found its way to the surface is shown in
the deep significance of such poems as
'Enceladus." His muse, however, was
usually gentle and smooth.mannered, de-
Lighting in harmony and melodious rhythm,
and sometimes placing too much import
ance upon meter and not enough upon
that which the meter was to convey.
He made many bold experiments, how
ever. The employment of English hex
ameters has never been more successful than
in " Evangeline," itself one of the most
tender and altogether beautiful poems in
the English language. Its pathos, its de-
scriptive force, its sensational interest, its
dramatic completeness, its general excel
lence, insure it Immortality. In ella
watha " the poet did not indeed invent
a new meter, but introduced one which
had very seldom been used in English pre-
viously, and with remarkable success. In
this poem, too, occurs one of the most per-
feet and exquisite images to be found
in all Literature, and it is SO good that we
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