Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-03-25
LONGFELLOW.
Henry WadswOrth LonYeilow Died fester-
day In his:seventy , fifth year After Two
DAYS Illness-his Life as Poet

hBs BsoSV00ty y0ssA 0AssA = W.
Days IlIness-Hls Life ~ POet
and Professor.
On February 81, 1907, Henry Wads-
worth Longfellow was born. The future
poet, with an elder brother, was sent to
Bowdoin college and graduated in due
course in 1925, in tho same class with
Nathaniel Hawthorne and several others
who afterward rose to emiDence. There
about his college life, except that he was
tribu:cd occasicr:,1- to the "poet's cor
ner'' of the newspapers. Among the
verses thus published in the United States
Literary Gazette, at Boston, were can
April Day. Woods in Winter" the
"Hymn Of the Moravian Nuns" and a
few others that have been preserved. He
attained rank in his class, however, and
at graduation was given the English ora
ton, the subject being sour Native
Writer'S Indeed, his literary attain.
men.s seem 50 much to have impressed
the college authorities that within a year
of his graduation, when he was fretting
over law books in his fathers Office they
offered him the then newly-established
professorsllip of modern languages, an ap-
pointment for which his tastes especially
fitted him and which determined the oc'
cupation of his life..
The Professor OF Languages.
LongfelIow checrfully accepted tho cffer
and Immediately sailed for Europe, where
he spent nearly four years in Germany,
Italy, France, and Spain, fitting himself
for the new duties opened to him. Re-
turning iD 1929, he settled down to work.
His first publication was a French gam.
mar, translation from L'Honond, issued
in 1880, and in the five years that he re-
maincd at Bowdoin he contributed to the
North american RS0ieW series of histOri-
cal and critical essays On the languages
and literature Of France, Italy and Spain.
His publications Of this period also in
cluded some French and Italian text books
and translation of the "Coplas de MAN.
rique," Spanish funeral poem OF the tif-
teenth century, with which We're included
some soanets from Lope de Vega.
From 1888 to 1885 there also appeared
"Ortre- -Mer; Pilgrimage Beyond the
Sea-" a series of sketches of foreign travel.
None of this work seems very remarkable
now, but when it is remembered how
nearly unknown to the American public
was the literature of continental Europe at
that iimc its value will be recognized
service that Longfellow did for his gener-
alton that he opened to them the poetry of
many nations and brought its rich
thoughts before them in melodious verse.
It was inevitab'e tha. his work should
attract attention, aud in 1885, on the
death of George Ticknor, Longfellow was
appointed to the chair of modern lam
Suages at Harvard. His wife, Mary S..
Potter, whom he had married soon after
his return to Bowdcin, died about this
time and LongfellOw went abroad a Sec
oud time and spent two years in travel
aud study in England and Germany, in
Denmark, Sweden and Norway and III
Holland and France. In 1887 he returned
to Cambridge and assumed the duties Ol
his profcssorship, taking up his residence
in tho historic Claigie house, which he
bought and where he has since lived. His
professorship he resigned in 1854, wher
lie was succeeded by James Russell
Lowell.
"Hyperlon" and the Poems.
In 1889 Longfellow married Frances
Elizabeth Appleton and in that year ap
peaTed the first of his works written in his
new homo" Hyperion, Romance
Judging this work in the light Of to day
we can hardly appreciate its Importance
Looking at it from the standpoint Of forty
years ago, when Carlyle WAS d young mar
when Goethe and Jean Paul had not beer
long dead, and when German life and let
ters were practically a sealed book to the
average American reader, the influence OF
Hyperion can hardly be overrated
Crude rs a romance and immature in
many ways as it was, it opened up a new
world of ideas and it was the beginning
of what was really Longfeliow's import
ant work, the translation into the popular
speech cf the romance and poetry of other
ages and climes. Almost::simultaneous
with this came his first volume of collect
cd poems, g Voices of the Night" pub
lished at Cambridge in 1889. Many o
these had been already printed, but tine
volume attracted a degree of popular at
tention that no book of American vers
had vet received, aud "The Psalm o
Life'' and tho " Reaper and the Flowers
established for themselves a place in thu
popular heart that they never yet hav
lost.
From this time on MIR. Longfellow's his
tory is told in his successive volumes o
poetry. for which the foundation had beel
laid in the studies thus related. Will
the exception of an essay on the Frencl
language in England, "Kavanagh."
tale o: nc great value, written in 1S49, i
his only publication after this. In 1874
appeared volume of "Ballads and othe
POEMS" which marked very great ad
vance upon the mild didacticism of th'
early verses. Among these were ETH
Skeleton in Armor," "The wreck of tn
Hesperus, and "The Village Blacksmith,
three successful poems which even PO
acknowledged to be "nearly true" Th
first especially is bold and original ballat
of real strength and the last is ono o
those New England pictures that retail
their beauty by reason Of their sincerity
With these also was EXCELSIOR" til,
reason for whose extraordinary popularit.
it is not necessary to point out.
Mature WORK.
A small volume of s'Poems on Slavery,
composed during a return voyage from
Europe in 1842, was followed by eth.
Spanish Student" a dramatic poem {
rather loose construction, but of tru
dramatic spirit and picturesque and warn
in color. After this some groups of trans
lstions and volume of selections, 'Poet
\ and Poetry of Europe" led up to tn
poem that has done more for the estab
lshment of Longfellow's fame than an
other one, ''Evangeline, a Tale Of Acs
die," published. in 1S47.
"Ye who believe in affection that hopes, tha
endurcs, and is patient.
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength q
wOman's devotion,
List to the mournfui tradition still sung b
the pines of the forest;
List TO a tale of love In Acadie, homo OF tn