The Portland daily press., 1882-02-28

great part of the company invited, because of
the distance out of town and the scarcity of
carriages. The coin in circulation is chiefly
Spanish dollars, halves, quarters, pistareens,
eighths and sixteenths the latter two of which
are known as ninepence and fourpence 'alf-
pennies. Federal money is SO little recognized
that prices are still reckoned in shillings and
pence-two- -and-six, three and-ninepence,
seyen-and- sixpence. 1t is journey Of two
days. by the accommodation stage, to Boston,
costing eight to ten dollars. If you go by the
mail stage you may be bounced through, with
aching bones in the hours between two
o'clock in the morning and ten at night.
Or, you may take coaster, and perhaps be
a week on the passage. The old Port
land Gazette and the Eastern Argus came out
once week, and the town crier supplies the
place of the daily newspaper. There are few
amusements. Theatrical performances hive
been voted down in town meeting, and pro-
hibited under heavy penalties; but by 1920
the poor players venture to make an occa-
sional appearance, and set up their scenery in
Union Hail. 1t is not until 1880 that theatre
is built, and it is soon converted into church
In the summer there are excursions by sail
ing boats to the islands, with an occasional
capsize and loss of life. In the winter, merry
sleighing parties drive out-to "Broad's" for
dance and supper. These are merry times
especially if the party is showed up, and COM
PEELED to remain over night. Flip and punch
flow freely, and sobriety is the exception rather
than the rule.
Such is "the beautiful town that is seat
ed by the sea- Such are the scenes to
which the thoughts of the poet go back,
in after years, with mans love for the
haunts of his childhood. Here he recalls
Al. - vh-11 G..11 L. nh.
youth again. The old town has not for
gotten him. The city into which it has
grown delights to honor him. Itcherishes the
memory of the days that were, and would fain
recall him to their familiar scenes. May he
live long to revisit the home of his boyhood,
and to enjoy the immortal youth which he has
made his own.
Prof. Packard OF Bowdoin College read q
most interesting paper on Longfellow as
student and professor at Bowdoin Of which the
following is an abstract:
Professor Packard's Paper.
In his brief and compact paper, Professor
Packard of Bowdoin College, the veteran
teacher to whom the poet made tender and rev.
erent allusion in the Morituri Salattamus
speaks proudly and exultantly of that famous
class of 1926 whose names blazon the brightest
page in the catalogue of Brunswick's gradu
ates. He pictures the poet ON his probation as
an attractive youth with auburn locks, just
entering the last half of his fifteenth year
with clear, fresh, blooming complexion, and
well-bred manners and sedate bearing The
class impressed their teacher as one OF ex-
traordinary promise "I recall he says, "the
4o1S
they sat in the old classroom OF Maine Hall y
Bradbury Josiah Slower Little, Hawthorne
the Longfellows, Shepley and others. Why?
cannot say why. 1t so happened. | cannot
testify concerning him whose name we, and
may add the civilized world, fonily cherish
any more than general statement of his un-
blemished character, as pupil and true gen
tleman in all his relations to the college and
its teachers 1t is college tradition that in
his sophomore year, at the annual examination
of his class, his version of an ode of Horace,
which fell to him to render, so impressed Hon.
Benjamin Orr of the committee of examina-
tion, that when the new professorshp of mod
ern languages was established, his recollection
of that specimen of the young sophomore's
taste and scholarship, led him to propose him
for the position"
Shortly after the time he was graduated Mr..
Longfellow was offered the Professorship OF
Modern Language, and it is as a teacher that
Professor Packard treats him. During his oc-
cupancy of that chair, Professor Packard says,
tHe approved himself teacher who never
wearied of his work, He Ewon, by his gentle
grace, and commanded respect by his sslf-re-
spect and his respect for his office, never allow
ing an infringement of the decorum of the rec
itation room. The department was new one,
and in lack of suitable text books he prepared
translation of popular French grammar
which went through several editions an Ital-
ian grammar Proverbes Dramatiques, Span
ish Tales for the class room, translation of
Coplas de Jorge Manrique, with an essay on
the Moral and Devotional Poetry of SPAIN
the version highly commended by Professor
Ticknor in his History of Spanish Literature
The last essay of all was that on the genius
of Longfellow by Hon. Geo. f. Talbot
Mr.. Talbot's Paper.
Emerson has said cali that we call sacred
history attests that the birth of q poet is the
principal event in chronology" OF the famous
bards of our time whose songs have cheered
and inspired the English-speakiDg race, we
must assign to the illustrious poet whose birth
day we commemorate the nearest place to the
popular heart II is fitting that this
beautiful town
That is seated by the sea.
where he confesses,
MY heart goes back to wander there
And, among the dreams of the days that were
find my lost youth again,
should reciprocate by some expression of its
admiration and gratitude the affeetionate SEN
timents he has ever cherished towards it. 1t is
fitting that this society, whose office it is with
reverent piety to study and perpetuate the
memory of whatever has been worthily acted
or eloquently and truthfully spoken among
those whose characters or public services have
done honor to our State, should celebrate the
genius of poet, whose fame has outgrown the
limits of the State wherein it had its BIRTH
and the great country which it has honored.
In assigning to Longfellow popularity preem-
inent among his fellows in the poetic art. 1 do
not forget the delight, with which for a whole
generation the American people have read the
exquisite versifcation and tender and lofty
sentiment, that especially characterize the
earlier poems of Tennysol. But while in the
growing depth of his thinking the great Eng
lish lyrist has more and more dissociated his
muse from those sentiments which are the
common experiences of mankind, he has at the
same time, in the severer tastes of age, grown
contemptuous of the ornaments of style, Sob
cred to homely plainness of speech the inspira-
tions that once burst forth in rhythmic music,
and studied only to reproduce the naked simpli-
city and dramatic reality of history. Then too
Tennyson s popularity is not a just measure of
his merit, because full consciousness of his
own powers and sensitivenesS characterizing
the irritable race of poets has hedged him
about with well-respected hauteur, that shut
out alike genial sympathy and serviceable crit
icism, while it preserved a seousion as necessa-
ry to his effective work, as it was grateful to
his sensitive feelings.
On the other hand Longfellow has made it
the inviolaole maxim Of his art that, as poetry
is noble sentiment expressed in beautiful lam
guage, faultlessness of expression is always a
condition Of high excellence. Carlyle has stren-
uously advised men who would instruct their
age to speak out in plain prose what they have
to say, or otherwise hold their peace. The Ca
pacity of language to be the vehicle of the
profoundest philosophy, the noblest sentiment,
the most delicate humoi Mr.. Carlyle has HIM
self successfully exemplifed. Butifin spite of
his invidious warning an inspired writer
chooses poetry as his medium of expression, he
owes it to an art whose laws have been rigidly
imposed by its great masters, to conform to
those laws. This requirement Mr.. Longfallow
has ever respected. Besides this, thoroughly
genial and friendly nature has kept him acces-
sble to all other minds, and hospitable and
courteous to all persons attracted by his genius,
no matter in how homely or intrusive form
this admiration has been expressed. Thus,
while in Tennyson's song we detsct tone
which expresses the daintiness of his Gisdain
for less exquistely endowed natures, Longfel-
low invites the confidence Of narrower and linn
tied minds by the " armth of his human sympa-
thies, and by his tender appreciation of the
common joys and sorrows of universal life.
Sixty years is long period to devote to one
pursuit. Few men are so happy as Longfellow
was in finding in their youth the precise work
they can best accomplish, and the necessary
equipment to undertake it. In his grave and
sad Salutatory, delivered at Bowdon on the fif-