side Inn." These he published in instalments extending through a decade, but they did not enhance his fame. Thye possess rather meagre literary merit. The poems which compose the collection are too diffuse and rambling, and the work lacks unity. They are a series of short stories gleaned from various foreign literatures and are strung together somewhat after the manner of Ovid's Metamorphoses. There seems, too, to be no obvious principle of classification. To be sure, there are some fine passages here and there, but the tales, as a whole, make upon the reader the wearisome impression of being long-drawn out and prolix. The author was presumably led into this error by his extraordinary lyrical facility and by his superior qualities as a raconteur. He was therefore handicapped by the defects of his qualities. I have said that Longfellow was the poet of the people, and the remark is true. In England he is regarded as the poet of the middle classes. Now, this was also the class for whom Tennyson wrote. It is a noteworthy fact that these two poets possessed much in common. But I need not dwell upon this point. Neither Longfellow nor Tennyson was a "poet of passion or pain." This phrase, however, is a more apt characterization of the great English poet than of the gifted American singer. Longfellow never touched any very deep chord either of joy or of sorrow. His register did not include either of these extremes. He pursued the even tenor of his song, never rising to the height of ineffable joy, on the one hand, nor descending to the depth of unutterable anguish, on the other. Still, he was not "an idle singer of an empty day." Being neither rich nor poor, he occupied a fortunate intermediate station in life; and following his own exhortation, he wrote out of his own heart and experience. Longfellow had a keen appreciation of nature. Probably nature would have appealed to him with something of the power and force with which she appealed to Wordsworth, if his lot had been cast among other surroundings. A college professor has a great deal of drudgery connected with his arduous duties, and the class-room does not afford the most glorious aspects of nature. " But Longfellow's love of nature was by no means an absorbing, passionate love. It has not that May-morning freshness about it, such as we find in the father of English poesy and in those who have drawn their inspiration from the same source as he. Like his contemporary Lowell, Longfellow could never quite forget his books; but unlike Lowell, Longfellow did not allow his learning to obtrude itself unduly, and thus render his art over-literary. A good illustration of what I mean is found in our poet's commemoration ode, "Morituri Salutamus,' written for the fiftieth anniversary of his graduating class. As Mr. Stedman has pointed out in his appreciative sketch of Longfellow in his "Poets of America," this ode contains more than twenty learned references within the brief compass of three hundred lines, and yet the allusions are so deftly wrought into the poem that the effect is simple, natural and artless. Had Lowell essayed to do the same thing, he would almost inevitably have produced the impression of airing his erudition and parading his art. Longfellow learned the art, as happy as it is rare, of veiling his learning, and he knew the value of simplicity and artlessness. Above all things he strove to be natural. Affectation and display were foreingn to his nature. He never posed for effect. His motto in art as in life was, Esse quam videri malim. His poetry was but the natural expression of his sterling character, which despised sham and pretense in whatever form masquerading, and was as sincere and chaste as his own pure soul. Longfellow's genius was lyrical. His inspiration he sought more often in the heart than in the head. Tenderness, sympathy and love, combined with melody and charm, are the distinctive qualities of his verse. He aimed to look, not upon the dark, threatening exterior of the cloud, but upon its bright silver lining. In a word, he was an optimist, and looked out upon life through roseate glasses. There was nothing morbid about him, as there was, for instance, about Poe. He is thoroughly sane and wholesome as well as chaste and pure. He put himself into his work and through his verse gave himself to the world. Guileless, pure and true, he would no sooner have written a line which he felt to be untrue than he would have told a glaring falsehood. Of the sacredness and importance of the office of the poet no man ever entertained a more exalted opinion. poetry is the flower and fruit of his noble life. EDWIN W. BOWEN. His Randolph-Macon College, Virginia. THE POETRY OF LONGFELLOW I "Beneath every literature there is a philosophy. Beneath every work of art there is an idea of nature and of life; this idea leads the poet. Whether the author knows it or not, he writes in order to exhibit it. And the characters which he fashions, like the events he arranges, only serve to bring forth the dim creative conception which raises and combines them." These are the views of Taine who wrote a History of English Literature to show how, under varied forms, the writers of England have given expression to certain simple spiritual tendencies. In this study we shall attempt to indicate the leading lines of thought in Longfellow-the ideas of nature and of art by which he was governed. He possessed in full measure that moral earnestness which critics regard as the great characteristic of the Anglo-Saxons. As was said of Schiller, so might it also be said of him: "There was in him a singular ardor for truth, a solemn conception of the duties of a poet, a deep-rooted idea on which we have been more than once called to insist, that the minstrel should be a preacher; that song is the sister of religion in its largest sense; that the stage is the pulpit of all sects, all nations, all time." This is the ideal which Longfellow keeps ever before him. Its influence permeates all his writings. In them there is but little regard for nature, such as we find in the writings of Wordsworth. He sees nature only as it is tinged by his own moral reflections. When he writes of it, he does so chiefly that he may draw from it some lesson which will be helpful to men. In his early years, in the "Psalm of Life," he indicated the line of thought which he was ever afterwards developing: Life is real! Life is earnest! It was the same, when, in his old age, he declared in "Morituri Salutamus:" For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress. This is the theme with which he is constantly dealing. In its development he writes of the individual, and not of society. From his poetry cannot be gained any complete view of the society of his day. He neither approves nor condemns it. There is no trace of the existence of those questions now so common in reference to the tendencies of society and the probable outcome of present social movements. The reformer, wishing to change old institutions in order to build a new social structure, will receive little aid from him. He will never become the ideal poet of a new social organization. Keeping his eyes steadily fixed on the individual, he writes, again and again, of his moral betterment. Of this a few lines from the "Ladder of St. Augus tine" may be taken as a type: Saint Augustine! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame! We have not wings, we cannot soar; The heights by great men reached and kept But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. While Longfellow is continually writing about man, he is silent in reference to the political forces which were at work around him. The final settlement of the contest between England and the United States; the long series of movements connected with the question of slavery; the struggle which settled the relations of the States and the Nation, all fell within the limits of his life-time; but his poetry was scarcely affected by any of them. He does indeed write of slavery, yet of it he does not say more than might be found in any poet living in an age in which slavery did not exist. In his poetry, slavery is treated, not in its relation to the whole social and political organism, but rather as an individualistic institution; for he saw it in its re |