Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Cardinal Wiseman some time since prefaced an enthusiastic eulogy on Longfellow (which we shall presently quote for the benefit of our readers) with the remark:

"He was a true philosopher who said, 'Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.'"

His Eminence, however, could hardly have foreseen that Longfellow's poetry would ere long be used by a ruler as an instrument to pacify a people for whom the threatenings of the law had but few terrors. We quote the narration which has elicited these remarks:

"An Apt Quotation.--The Lecompton (Kansas) Union of the 2d Inst. has a pleasant account of a visit recently paid by Acting Governor Stanton to the citizens of Lawrence. After partaking of the hospitalities kindly extended to him by Governor Robinson, he addressed, by request, a crowd of some five hundred free-State men who did not hesitate to manifest disapprobation at such portions of the speech as did not accord with their peculiar political views At the close of Mr. Stanton's speech he pictured in glowing language the Indian tradition of Hiawatha, of the 'Peace-Pipe,' 'shaped and fashioned' by 'Gitchie Manito, the Mighty,' and by which he 'called the tribes of men together,' and in his own language addressed them:--

"I have given you lands to hunt in,

I have given you streams to fish in,

I have given you bear and bison,

I have given you roe and reindeer,

I have given you brant and beaver,

Fill'd the marshes full of wild fowl,

Fill'd the river full of fishes:

Why, then, are you not contented?

Why, then, will you hunt each other?

"'I am weary of your quarrels,

Weary of your wars and bloodshed,

Weary of your prayers for vengeance,

Of your wranglings and dissensions:

All your strength is in your union,

All your danger is in discord;

Therefore be at peace henceforward,

And, as brothers, live together."

"The applicability of the quotation (says the Lecompton Union) was felt by the crowd, and involuntary applause burst forth from those who had murmured but a moment before."

We have not been sparing of the quotation of opinionson Hiawatha; but those who desire to pursue the subject still further can refer to the Irish Quarterly Review, Jan. 1856, and to Putnam's (New York) Magazine, Dec. 1855.

Having now concluded the list of the publications of this favorite author, it is proper that we should say a few words respecting the principal editions of his works. A beautiful illustrated collective ed. of Longfellow's Poetical Works was pub. by Carey & Hart in Philadelphia, 1845, 8vo, with engravings by J. Cheney from original pictures by Huntington. Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, of Boston,-- so favourably known for their taste in getting up the best productions of American and English authors,--have been for some years Mr. Longfellow's publishers, and issue his works in single vols., or all together in 6 vols.,--three of poetry and three of prose. They have within the last few months (in 1857) given to the world a beautiful edition of his Complete Works,--viz.: POEMS in 2 vols. 32mo.. Contents of vol. i.: 1. Voices of the Night; 2. Earlier Poems; 3. Translations; 4. Ballads, and other Poems; 5. Poems on Slavery; 6. The Spanish Student; 7. The Belfry of Bruges, and other Poems; 8. The Seaside and the Fireside. Contents of vol. ii.: 1. Evangeline; 2. The Golden Legend; 3. Hiawatha. PROSE WORKS, 2 vols. 32mo,--viz.: Contents of vol. i.: l. Outre-Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea; 2. Drift-Wood, a Collection of Essays. Contents of vol. ii.: 1. Hyperion, a Romance; 2. Kavanagh, a Tale. The circulation of this beautiful edition, which is sold at the trifling price of seventy-five cents per vol., will undoubtedly be very large. We recapitulate the figures which we have affixed to the titles of Longfellow's productions.

Sale of Longfellow's Poetical Works to April, 1857: Pub. Sale to Copies Voices of the Night 1839 April 1857 43,000 Ballads, and other Poems 1841 " 40,000 The Spanish Student 1843 " 38,000 The Belfry of Bruges, and other Poems. 1846 " 38,000 Evangeline 1847 " 37,000 The Seaside and the Fireside 1849 " 30,000 The Golden Legend 1851 " 17,000 Hiawatha Oct. 1855 " 50,000 293,000 Sale of the Prose Works: Pub. Sale to Copies Outre-Mer 1835 April 1857 7,500 Hyperion 1839 " 14,550 Kavanagh 1849 " 10,500 Sale of Prose Works 32,550 " " Poetical Works. 293,000 Total sale in America of Longfellow's Works to April, 1857 325,550

What the sale has been in Europe we have no means of knowing; but, as Longfellow is the most popular poet in America, undoubtedly he enjoys the same pre-eminence in Great Britain. If this assertion amaze the reader, we shall strengthen it a little, and are very safe in affirming that there is no living poet on either side of the water who makes even a distant approach to Longfellow's popularity. Within the last few years the English eds. of his Works have been issued by the following publishers: 1. Bickers; 2. Bogue; 3. Chapman; 4. Clarke; 5. Dickinson; 6. Gilpin; 7. Houlston; 8. Knight & Son; 9. Gall & Inglis; 10. Nelson; 11. Routledge; 12. Simpkin; 13. Slater; 14. Tegg; 15. Theobald; 16. Whittaker; 17. Kent & Richards; 18. Walker. Among the eds. put forth by these publishers deserving of particular notice are: 1. Poetical Works, "containing 34 pieces not in any other illustrated ed.;" illustrated by John Gilbert. 100 plates with a portrait after Lawrence, 1855, p. 4to, Ј1 1s.; pub. by Routledge. 2. Poetical Works, illustrated by Birket Foster, and others; last ed., 1856, 8vo, Ј1 ls., pub. by Bogue. 3. Poems, with Essay by Gilfillan, (Liverp.,) 1850, sq., 5s. 6d.; gilt, 6s. 6d.; mor. extra, 10s., pub. by Simpkin. 4. Voices of the Night, illustrated by a Lady, 1850, 4to, 10s. 6d.; pub. by Dickinson. 5. Voices of the Night illustrated, 1852, 8vo, 15s.; pub. by Bogue. 6. Evangeline, illustrated, 1849, p. 8vo; 3d ed., 1852, p. 8vo, 10s. 6d.; pub. by Bogue. 7. Evangeline, illustrated by John Gilbert, engravings by Dalziel Brothers, 1856, med. 8vo, 7s. 6d.; pub. by Routledge. 8. Golden Legend, illustrated with 50 engravings, 1855, cr. 8vo, 12s., mor., 21s.; pub. by Bogue. 9. Song of Hiawatha, illustrated by John Gilbert, 1856, 2s. 6d.; gilt, 3s., pub. by Routledge. 10. Prose Works,--viz.: I. OutreMer; II. Hyperion; III. Kavanagh; new ed., all in 1 vol. sq., 6s., pub. by Bogue. 11. Hyperion, with illustrations, 1852 sq., 3s 6d., pub. by Bogue. 12. Prose Works, by Gilfillan, 1857, 12mo, 4s.; pub. by Bickers. Nor should we omit to notice the beautiful "Christmas Present," pub. by Boosey & Sons, of Holles Street, (1857, 12mo, Ј1 3s.,) containing Fourteen of Longfellow's Songs, set to Music by Balfe, as introduced at all the principal Concerts of the Season by Miss Dolby, Miss Huddart, Mr. Sims Reeve, and Herr Reichardt. Contents; 1. Two Locks of Hair, Song; 2. The Village Blacksmith, Song; 3. The Rainy Day, Song; 4. Stars of the Summer Night, Serenade; 5. The Arrow and the Song, Song; 6. The Happiest Land, Song; 7. Good-Night, Beloved, Serenade; 8. Annie of Tharaw, Song; 9. The Reaper and the Flowers, Song; 10. This is the Place, Ballad; 11. The Green Trees, Ballad; 12. The Day is Done, Song; 13. Trust her not, Duett; 14. Excelsior, Duett.

The publication of this volume is another evidence of the unbounded popularity of the author in Great Britain.

"Probably there is no author who writes the English language," remarks the correspondent of Moore's Rural New-Yorker, "so popular in England, at the present time, as Longfellow. His writings are the subject of much criticism in the journals, and are printed in almost every possible form and style. The number of cheap editions is very numerous, and this is a convincing proof of his great popularity. He is read and admired by all classes; and quotations from his poems are frequently made in the pulpit, in journals, and by public speakers."

Grace Greenwood, (Mrs. Sarah J. Lippincott,) in her Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe, remarks:

"During this evening Mr. Dickens spoke to me with much interest and admiration of Mrs. Stowe and Mr. Hawthorne. Wherever I go, my national pride is gratified by hearingeloquent tributes to these authors and to the poet Longfellow."

Mary Russell Mitford was one of the most ardent of our poet's admirers, and devotes a chapter to his praise and poetry in her Recollections of a Literary Life:

"I do not know a more enviable reputation," she remarks, "than Professor Longfellow has won for himself in this country,--won, too, with a rapidity seldom experienced by our native poets. The terseness of diction and force of thought delight the old; the grace and melody enchant the young; the unaffected and all-pervading piety satisfies the serious; and a certain slight touch of mysticism carries the imaginative reader fairly off his feet. For my own part, I confess not only to the being captivated by all these qualities, (mysticism excepted,) but to the farther fact of yielding to the charm of certain lines. I cannot very well tell why, and walking about the house repeating such figments as this,--

"I give the first watch of the night

To the red planet Mars,'-- as if I were still eighteen. I am not sure that this is not as great a proof of the power of the poet as can be given."--American Poets, Chapter VI.

That exquisite poet and intelligent critic, Mr. Moir, (the "Delta" of Blackwood,) at the conclusion of his Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century, (Edin. and Lon., 1851, 12mo,) remarks:

"I should have also liked to have been able to add more strictures on the brother-poets of America, more especially Henry Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant, for both of whom I have a high admiration,--the one being distinguished for the possession of the very element in which our recent verse is so deficient,--imaginative truth, --and the other having preserved, in many of his pictures, the native aboriginal tone which must hereafter render them invaluable."

"The distinguishing qualities of Longfellow seem to be beauty of imagination, delicacy of taste, wide sympathy, and mild earnestness, expressing themselves sometimes in forms of quaint and fantastic fancy. but always in chaste and simple language.... One of the most pleasing characteristics of this writer's works is their intense humanity. A man's heart beats in his every line.... He loves, pities, and feels with, as well as for, his fellow human mortal.... He is a brother, speaking to men as brothers, and as brothers they are responsive to his voice.... We close our paper with feelings of gratitude and respect for our transatlantic author." --Gilfillan's Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 2d. ed., Edin., 1852, 254-264.

"In golden harmony, mellifluous diction, and erudite polish, Longfellow can successfully compete with our most fastidious poets; and few can surpass him in richness of fancy, imaginative capacity, and elevation of thought. The admiration which his poetry must necessarily elicit from us will be heightened considerably when we reflect that this elegance and unalterable deference to the laws of beauty is altogether unattended by any poverty of substance, connected range of thought, tameness in origination of idea or its embodiment.... Philosophy, and that generally of the purest and the most hopeful kind, enhances the value of his poetry, his metaphysical ratiocinations are no less remarkable for their soundness and subtlety than for the buoyant spirit which pervades them; and wisdom holds her throne supreme over all his imaginings."--Irish Quar. Rev. June, 1855, 197-204.

"His poems are of an order to which we have none akin. Germany, more than England, has been the source of his inspiration. Our own writers of short poems--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley --have nothing in common with him. He is still further removed from our lyric writers, from Burns to Moore. He writes, like Cowper, with a purpose, and his verses have a liquid flow to which the former can lay no claim."--Lon. Metropolitan.

"We are thankful that the present Age is graced by such a poet as Mr. Longfellow, whose extraordinary accomplishment and research, and devotion to his high calling, can hardly be overrated. His productions must always command our deep attention, for in them we are certain to meet with great beauty of thought, and very elegant diction."--Blackwood's Mag., Feb. 1852.

See also Ruskin's Elements of Drawing; Leigh Hunt's letter to the American editor of his Corrected Poetical Works, prefixed to this collection, pub. by Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1857.

These are certainly high commendations, and, with those previously quoted from foreign sources, must be the more gratifying to the subject of them from the fact that no national partiality can be suspected. Not, indeed, that our American critics are often guilty of indiscriminate laudation of their own countrymen. We are very naturally and very properly awake to the danger of erring in this matter, and are quite as likely to permit caution to incline us to the other extreme. As regards Mr. Longfellow, however, were our critics ever so extravagant in eulogy, it would be difficult for them to surpass the leaders of literary opinion in Europe. We have already quoted many American criticisms on several of our author's works, and feel tempted to adduce several native opinions. respecting his general characteristics as a poet; but here-- our article having already insensibly lengthened itself until like the clown in the churchyard, we are afraid to look back--we must force ourselves to be brief.

"Longfellow has a perfect command of that expression which results from restraining rather than cultivating fluency; and his manner is adapted to his theme. He rarely, if ever, mistakes 'emotions for conceptions.' He selects with great delicacy and precision the exact phrase which best expresses or suggests his idea. He colours his style with the skill of a painter; and, in compelling words to picture thought, he not only has the warm flush and bright tints of language at his command, but he arrests its evanescent hues. In the higher department of his art--that of so combining his words and images that they make music to the soul as well as to the ear, and convey not only his feelings and thoughts, but also the very tone and condition of the soul in which they have their being--he has given exquisite examples in Maidenhood and Endymion.... Longfellow's verse occupies a position halfway between the poetry of actual life and the poetry of transcendentalism. Like all neutrals, he is liable to attack from the zealots of both parties; but it seems to us that he has hit the exact point beyond which no poet can at present go without being either neglected or ridiculed. He idealizes real life; he elicits new meaning from many of its rough shows; he clothes subtle and delicate thoughts in familiar imagery; he embodies high moral sentiment in beautiful and ennobling forms; he inweaves the golden threads of spiritual being into the texture of common existence; he discerns and addresses some of the finest sympathies of the heart: but he rarely soars into those regions of abstract imagination where the bodily eye cannot follow, but where that of the seer is gifted with a 'pervading vision.'"--E. P. Whipple's Essays and Reviews, vol. i. 60-61, 62-63; and N. Amer. Rev., Jan. 1844, vol. lviii. 24, 26.

The reader should peruse the whole of this admirable paper, or, rather, the whole of the two volumes,--Whipple's Essays and Reviews, Bost., 1851.

"Nothing can exceed the exquisite beauty of some of his smaller pieces, while they also abound in that richness of expression and imagery which the Romantic muse is supposed to claim as her more especial attribute. The melody of his versification is very remarkable: some of his stanzas sound with the richest and sweetest music of which language is capable. It is unnecessary to illustrate this remark by quotations: the memories of all readers of poetry involuntarily retain them. In the range of American poetry, it would not be easy to find any that is so readily remembered, that has sunk so deeply into the hearts of the people, and that so spontaneously rises to the speaker's tongue in the pulpit and the lecture-room."--Prof. C. C. Felton: N. Amer. Rev., July, 1842, lv. 115.

"Almost all Longfellow's poems are gems set with consummate taste.... His Skeleton in Armor is the most novel and characteristic of his shorter poems, and his Psalm of Life and Excelsior are the most familiar and endeared. He is the artistic, as Halleck is the lyrical, and Bryant the picturesque and philosophic, of American poets."--H. T. Tuckerman: Sketch of Amer. Lit., 1852.

The reference to the Psalm of Life and Excelsior may remind some of our renders of Mr. Gilfillan's fervid commendation of these poems:

"No poet has more beautifully expressed the depth of his conviction that life is an earnest reality,--a something with eternal issues and dependencies, that this earth is no scene of revelry or market of sale but an arena of contest. This is the inspiration of his Psalm of Life; than which we have few things finer, in moral tone, since those odes by which the millions of Israel tuned their march across the wilderness.... We have just alluded to Excelsior, one of those happy thoughts which seem to drop down, like fine days, from some serener region, which meet instantly the ideal of all minds, and run on afterwards, and forever, in the current of the human heart. We can now no more conceive of a world without Excelsior than of a world without the Iliad, the Comus, or the Midsummer Night's Dream. It has expressed in the happiest and briefest way what many minds in the age had been trying in vain to express."--Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, 2d ed., Edin., 258, 259.

But to return to our American critics:

"Of all our poets, Longfellow best deserves the title of artist. He has studied the principles of verbal melody, and rendered himself master of the mysterious affinities which exist between sound and sense, word and thought, feeling and expression. This tact in the use of language is probably the chief cause of his success. There is an aptitude, a gracefulness, and vivid beauty, in many of his stanzas, which at once impress the memory and win the ear and heart."--R. W. Griswold: Poets and Poetry of America, 16th ed., Phila., 1855. 355.

"We shall only say that he is the most popular of American poets, and that this popularity may safely be assumed to contain in itself the elements of permanence, since it has been fairly earned, without any of that subservience to the baser tastes of the public which characterizes the quack of letters. His laurels honourably gained and gently worn. Without comparing him with others, it is enough if we declare our conviction that he has composed poems which will live as long as the language in which they are written."--J. Russell Lowell: N. Amer. Rev., 69, 215.

"The secret of his popularity as a poet is probably that of all similar popularity--namely, the fact that his poetry expresses a universal sentiment in the simplest and most melodious manner. Each of his most noted poems is the song of a feeling common to every mind in moods into which every mind is liable to fall. Thus, a Psalm of Life, Footsteps of Angels, To the River Charles, Excelsior, The Bridge, The Gleam of Sunshine, The Day is Done, The Old Clock on the Stairs, The Arrow and the Song, The Fire of Driftwood, Twilight, The Open Window, are all most adequate and inexpressibly delicate renderings of quite universal emotions. There is a humanity in them which is irresistible in the fit measures to which they are wedded. If some elegiac poets have strung rosaries of tears, there is a weakness of woe in their verses which repels; but the quiet, pensive thought,--the twilight of the mind, in which the little facts of life are saddened in view of their relation to the eternal laws, time and change,--this is the meditation and mourning of every manly heart, and this is the alluring and permanent charm of Longfellow's poetry."--George William Curtis: Sketch of Longfellow, in Homes of American Authors, N. York, 1853, 282-283.

The following list of translations of a number of Longfellow's works will interest the reader:

In Italian:

Evangelina, tradotta da Pietro Rotondi, Firenza, 1857.

In German:

Longfellow's Gedichte ьbersetz von Carl Bцttger, Dessau 1856; Gedichte von H. W. Longfellow, Deutsch von Alexander Neidhard, Darmstadt, 1856; Balladen und Lieder von H. W. Longfellow, Deutsch von A. R. Nielo Mьnster, 1857; Hyperion, Deutsch von Adolf Bцttger, Leipzig, 1856; Evangeline, Aus dem Englischen, Hamburg, 1857; Evangeline, Aus dem Englischen, von P. J. Bekie, Leipzig, 1854; Das Lied von Hiawatha, Deutsch von Adolf Bцttger, Leipzig, 1856; Der Sang von Hiawatha, ьbersetze von Ferdinand Freiligrath, Stuttgart und Augsburg, 1857; Der Spanische Student, ьbersetze von Karl Bцttger, Dessau, 1854.

In French:

Йvangйline, suivie des Voix de la Nuit, poлmes traduits par Le Chevalier de Chatelain, Jersey, 1856.

Those who desire to peruse critical dissertations (in addition to the many already indicated) on the works and genius of this popular author can refer to--1. Herrig's Handbuch der Nordamerikanischen National literatur. 2. Allgemeine Zeitung. 3. Revue des Deux Mondes. 4. Journal des Dйbats. 5. Lon. Athenжum, 1835, 148,--(Lit. in the Nineteenth Century: America.) 6. Lon. Athenжnum, 1844, 8-9. 7. Eclectic Review, 4th ser., xxvi. 710. 8. Fraser's Mag., April, 1855. 9. Dubl. Univ. Mag., xxxv. 461. 10. New Monthly Mag., (copied in Bost. Liv. Age,) xxxix. 417. 11. Amer. Whig Rev., xii. 359. 12. South. Lit. Mess., vi. 230. 13. Do., viii. 150. 14. Do., xi. 92. But we must not conclude without giving the promised quotation respecting Longfellow, from Cardinal Wiseman's Lecture on the Home Education of the Poor. Thus it runs:

"There is no greater lack in English literature than that of a poet of the people, -- of one who shall be to the labouring-classes of England what Goethe is to the peasant of Germany. He was a true philosopher who said, 'Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.' There is one writer who approaches nearer than any other to this standard, and he has already gained such a hold on our hearts that it is almost unnecessary for me to mention his name. Our hemisphere cannot claim the honour of having brought him forth; but still he belongs to us, for his works have become as household words wherever the English language is spoken. And, whether we are charmed by his imagery, or soothed by his melodious versification, or elevated by the high moral teachings of his pure muse, or follow with sympathizing hearts the wanderings of Evangeline, I am sure that all who hear my voice will join with me in the tribute I desire to pay to the genius of Longfellow."

Thus have we seen the poet's praise chanted alike by stern reviewer and gentle lady, by lowly critic and lordly prelate. But, as we cast a glance at the table where our books are piled in "learned confusion" around us, we are silently reminded that our pleasing task is not yet finished. The poet's bays are entitled to another wreath, and we, shall not withhold it. It was promised by the wisest of men that he who was "diligent in his business" should "stand before kings;" and--laborious in the great duty of accumulating and distributing knowledge, laborious in the cause of humanity, of freedom, and of truth--the poet, scholar, and philanthropist of Cambridge has not failed of this reward also.

In 1855 the Rev. J. C. Fletcher took a number of specimens of American literature, art, and manufactures to the capital of Brazil, where he was permitted to exhibit them in the National Museum. They were first visited by the Emperor Dom Pedro II., whose knowledge of literature is as remarkable as his attainments in science. In the work entitled Brazil and the Brazilians, (by Rev. Messrs. Kidder and Fletcher,) Mr. F. gives an account of his majesty's visit; and to this narration (furnished us by Mr Fletcher in advance of the publication of his volume) it is owing that to the many golden opinions of Mr. Longfellow already recorded we are able to add that of the monarch of Brazil:

"He [Dom Pedro II.] approached the table where were the books presented by Parry & McMillan. He opened the Homes of the American Authors, and surprised me by his knowledge of our literature. He made remarks on Irving, Cooper, and Prescott, showing an intimate acquaintance with each. His eye falling upon the name of Longfellow, he asked me, in great haste and eagerness, 'Monsieur Fletcher, avez-vous les poлmes de M. Longfellow?' It was the first time that I ever saw in Dom Pedro II. an enthusiasm which in its earnestness and simplicity resembled the warmth of childhood when about to possess itself of some long-cherished object. I replied, 'I believe not, your majesty.' 'Oh,' said he, 'I am exceedingly sorry, for I have sought in every bookstore of Rio de Janeiro for Longfellow, and I cannot find him. I have a number of beautiful morceaux from him; but I wish the whole work, I admire him so much.' Mr. Fletcher afterward presented him with the Poets aud Poetry of America, informing the emperor that it contained some choice selections from the American poet whom he so much admired, and whom he called 'my Longfellow.' Afterward, at the palace of S. Christopher, when Mr. F. took leave of the emperor, the latter said to him, 'When you return to your country, have the kindness to say to Mr. Longfellow how much pleasure he has given me, and be pleased to tell him combien je l'estime, combien je l'aime.'"

Размещено на Allbest.ru