GIFT OF 
 Robert Warren Jones 
 

o 
 
 
, 
 
 vf. 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 SEVENTY-FIFTH BIETHDAY. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 OP THE 
 
 jHaine 
 
 FEBRUAKY 27, 1882. 
 
 PORTLAND: 
 HOYT, FOGG AND DONHAM, 
 
 193 MIDDLE STREET. 
 
Copyright, 1882, 
 Br MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 Gin 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 ELECTRO-TYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 H. 0. IIOUGHTON AND COMPANY 
 
b 
 
 1807 1882. 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 V MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 M769928 
 
Often I think of the beautiful town 
 
 That is seated by the sea; 
 Often in thought go up and down 
 The pleasant streets of that dear old town, 
 
 And my youth comes back to me. 
 
 My Lost Youth. 
 
 But the poet s memory here 
 
 Of the landscape makes a part. 
 
 Oliver Basselin. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE poems, papers, and letters included in this 
 volume were published in the " Portland Daily 
 Advertiser/ on the day following the meeting at 
 which they were read; but the edition was at 
 once exhausted. Since Mr. Longfellow s death 
 their republication has been frequently requested. 
 Worthy tributes have been paid to the poet s 
 memory. It is a pleasing thought to the members 
 of the Maine Historical Society that the proceed 
 ings of this meeting on Mr. Longfellow s last 
 birthday, in the city in which he was born, came 
 under his own eye, and reawakened thoughts of 
 his " Lost Youth." 
 
 H. S. B. 
 
 PORTLAND, May 18, 1882. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 RECORD OF MEETING 9 
 
 OPENING ADDRESS. HON. W. G. BARROWS, Brunswick 15 
 LAUS LAUREATI. JAMES PHINNEY BAXTER, ESQ., Port 
 land 22 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, AND HIS PATERNAL 
 
 ANCESTRY. REV. HENRY S. BURRAGE, Portland . 29 
 GENERAL PELEG WADSWORTH, AND THE MATERNAL AN 
 CESTRY OF HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. HON. WILL 
 IAM GOOLD, Windbam 52 
 
 THE PORTLAND OF LONGFELLOW S YOUTH. EDWARD H. 
 
 ELWELL, ESQ., Portland 81 
 
 LONGFELLOW AS A STUDENT AND PROFESSOR AT BOWDOIN 
 
 COLLEGE. A. S. PACKARD, D. D., Brunswick . . 99 
 THE GENIUS OF LONGFELLOW. HON. GEORGE F. TALBOT, 
 
 Portland 107 
 
 LETTER FROM HON. JAMES W. BRADBURY . . .126 
 LETTER AND POEM FROM HON. ISRAEL WASHBURN, JR. . 130 
 TRIBUTE FROM HON. JOSEPH WILLIAMSON . . . .133 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY AT ITS SPRING MEETING, 
 
 MAY 25, 1882 137 
 
 ADDRESS BY REV. THOMAS HILL, D. D 157 
 
 ADDRESS BY HON. JOSEPH W. SYMONDS .... 160 
 ADDRESS BY REV. ASA DALTON 165 
 
EECOED OF MEETING. 
 
 AT a meeting held in Portland on Monday 
 evening, February 27, 1882, the Maine Historical 
 Society celebrated the seventy-fifth birthday of 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was the desire 
 of the members that Mr. Longfellow himself might 
 honor the Society by his presence on that occasion, 
 and the President, Hon. J. W. Bradbury, extended 
 to him an earnest invitation, to which Mr. Long 
 fellow sent the following reply : 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, February 12, 1882. 
 
 DEAB- MR. BRADBURY, I am extremely obliged to 
 you for your cordial invitation to attend the meeting of 
 the Maine Historical Society, on the 27th of this month, 
 and greatly regret that I am prevented by illness from 
 accepting it. Rest assured that I highly appreciate the 
 honor the Society has done me in calling this meeting on 
 the anniversary of my birthday, and that I shall always 
 hold it in grateful remembrance. Reciprocating your 
 good wishes, I am Yours faithfully, 
 
 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
10 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 It was intended that the meeting should be held 
 in the rooms of the Society, in City Building, and 
 the walls had been adorned with portraits of dis 
 tinguished members of the Longfellow and Wads- 
 worth families, while in a case had been arranged 
 the following articles : 
 
 Letter of Stephen Longfellow, of Newbury, born 1685, 
 the blacksmith and ensign. 
 
 Letter of Stephen 2d, the school-master, son of the 
 above. 
 
 Letter of Stephen 3d, the judge, son of the above. 
 
 Letter of Stephen 4th, the statesman, son of the above 
 and father of Henry, the poet. 
 
 The original letter of Parson Thomas Smith, inviting 
 Stephen, the school-master, to visit Portland. 
 
 Silver tankard and silver porringer, marked " S. L. Ex 
 Dona Patris" made in 1770. 
 
 Autograph letter of General Peleg Wadsworth. 
 
 Stereoscopic views of the house built by General Peleg 
 Wadsworth in the town of Hiram, Maine, in 1800. 
 
 Silhouette portrait of General Peleg Wadsworth in 
 1784. 
 
 Portrait of Stephen Longfellow, the statesman, painted 
 by King, in Washington, about the year 1826. 
 
 The 4th of July, 1804, oration, delivered by Long 
 fellow, father of the poet, MS. and print. 
 
 A drawing of the Wads worth-Longfellow House on 
 Congress Street, as it stood when completed in 1785, 
 then only two stories. 
 
 An autograph poem, entitled " Venice, an Italian 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 11 
 
 Song," one stanza, dated Portland Academy, March 17, 
 1820, and signed Henry W. Longfellow, written at the 
 age of thirteen years. 
 
 Early printed books by Longfellow: "Manuel de 
 Proverbes Dramatiques," 1832; " Coplas de Don Jorge 
 Manrique," 1833 ; Outre-Mer," 1833. 
 
 The poetical works of Longfellow, two volumes quarto, 
 splendidly illustrated and bound, loaned by the publish 
 ers, Messrs. Houghton, MifHin & Co., Boston. 
 
 Sundry autograph poems of Longfellow. 
 
 Portrait of Henry W. Longfellow, painted by Badger, 
 in Brunswick, Me., about the year 1830. 
 
 Sketch of the village smithy at Cambridge, 1840, with 
 the chestnut-tree. 
 
 Photograph of the chair presented to the poet by the 
 children of Cambridge in 1879, made from the wood of 
 the chestnut-tree near the village smithy. 
 
 But at an early hour the Library was crowded, 
 and it was found necessary to adjourn to Reception 
 Hall, which was at once filled, while many who 
 sought admission were turned away. Among those 
 present were the poet s brother, Alexander Long 
 fellow, and family, of Portland ; his two sisters, 
 Mrs. Annie L. Pierce, of Portland, and Mrs. Mary 
 L. Greenleaf, of Cambridge, Mass.; and his nephew, 
 Mr. William P. P. Longfellow, of Boston. 
 
 In the absence of the President of the Society, 
 Hon. J. W. Bradbury, of Augusta, the Vice-Presi- 
 dent, Hon. W. G. Barrows, of Brunswick, presided. 
 
12 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 On a table before him was a bust of Longfellow, 
 by Paul Akers ; at his right was a large and beau 
 tiful bouquet, the gift of Mrs. John B. Brown ; on 
 the wall in the rear of the Vice-President was sus 
 pended the sword presented to Commodore Alex 
 ander Samuel Wadsworth by the citizens of Port 
 land ; on a frame at the left were drawings of the 
 old Longfellow and Wadsworth houses. 
 
 Judge Barrows delivered the opening address. 
 At the close of the address, on motion of E. H. El- 
 well, Esq., of Portland, the following telegram was 
 sent to Mr. Longfellow : 
 
 PORTLAND, February 27, 1882. 
 
 To H. W. LONGFELLOW, Cambridge, Mass. : 
 
 The members of the Maine Historical Society, assem 
 bled with friends, in honor of your seventy-fifth birthday, 
 send greetings and congratulations. 
 
 H. W. BRYANT, Recording Secretary. 
 
 James P. Baxter, Esq., of Portland, then read 
 a poem, " Laus Laureati," and near the close, at 
 the words, 
 
 " And now, I may 
 
 This wreath from Deering s woods, O Master, lay 
 Upon thy brow," 
 
 he placed a chaplet of oak leaves upon the bust of 
 the poet, amid long-continued applause. 
 
 Kev. Henry S. Burrage, of Portland, followed 
 with a paper on " Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
 and his Paternal Ancestry." 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 13 
 
 Hon. William Goold, of Windham, read a paper 
 on " Gen. Peleg Wadsworth, the Maternal Grand 
 father of Henry W. Longfellow." 
 
 Edward H. Elwell, Esq., of Portland, read a 
 paper on " The Portland of Longfellow s Youth." 
 
 Prof. A. S. Packard, D.D., of Bowdoin College, 
 read a paper on " Longfellow as a Student and 
 Professor at Bowdoin College." 
 
 Hon. George F. Talbot, of Portland, read a paper 
 on "The Genius of Longfellow." 
 
 At the close of the reading of these papers, 
 the following telegram from Mr. Longfellow was 
 read : 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, February 27, 1882. 
 
 To H. W. BRYANT, Recording Secretary of Maine His 
 torical Society, Portland, Me. : 
 
 Your telegram received. I return cordial thanks to 
 the members of the Society, and am grateful for this 
 signal mark of their remembrance and regard. 
 
 HENKY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 The Secretary announced letters from Hon. J. 
 W. Bradbury and Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr., but 
 their reading was omitted on account of the late 
 ness of the hour. They will be found at the close 
 of the papers : also a tribute to Mr. Longfellow, 
 by Hon. Joseph Williamson, of Belfast, which was 
 received too late for the meeting. 
 
 It is proper to add in this connection that in 
 
14 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 the city, during the day, flags and other decora 
 tions were displayed on the public buildings ; on 
 the house at the corner of Fore and Hancock 
 streets in which Mr. Longfellow was born; and 
 on many private residences ; while the English 
 steamers in port, in their holiday dress, bore beau 
 tiful testimony to the fact that in England as well 
 as in America the poems of Longfellow have en 
 deared him to the hearts of the people. 
 
OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 BY HON. W. G. BARROWS, BRUNSWICK. 
 
 BRETHREN OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, LADIES AND 
 GENTLEMEN : 
 
 I bespeak your kind indulgence for my inex 
 perience, and your prompt and zealous coopera 
 tion, in undertaking the performance of my duties 
 on this occasion. To the members of the Society 
 it is well known that the punctual attendance of 
 our President has made the Vice-Presidency prac 
 tically a sinecure, and this, with my own enforced 
 absence at most of the extraordinary meetings of 
 the society, must be my apology for my deficien 
 cies now, which I look to your kindness to supply. 
 
 I feel that it would not be quite proper for me 
 to direct the crier to proclaim that all who have 
 anything to do here to-night may draw near and 
 give their attendance, and they shall be heard, and 
 then quietly await the result : but I have an im 
 pression that, in presiding at such a gathering, 
 the best form is the nearest possible approach to 
 a want of form, or at least of formality, and I have 
 no fear that in this assembly the divine law of 
 
16 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 order would be greatly infringed even if the chair 
 were altogether vacant. 
 
 But I believe it to be a part of my pleasant 
 duty to state the object of our meeting. 
 
 The first notice of it which I saw in the news 
 papers spoke of it, if I remember rightly, as a 
 meeting to do honor to the poet Longfellow on the 
 occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday. Perhaps it 
 would be more accurate to say that it is a meet 
 ing to testify our sense of the honor he has done 
 to this, his birthplace. It is very little we can do 
 to honor him whose own works have long ago 
 crowned him a king in the hearts of men, to bear 
 sway wherever and so long as the English lan 
 guage is spoken or understood. 
 
 We meet to claim for this good city the honor 
 which from time immemorial has always been con 
 ceded to the birthplaces of poets and seers, to 
 do our part to link the name of " the dear old 
 town" with his, as he has linked it in the loving 
 description which he has given in the idyl of 
 "My Lost Youth." 
 
 For a more potent reason than the chiseled in 
 scription on the ancient mill which links the name 
 of Oliver Basselin with the Valley of the Vire, in 
 all coming time, " shall the poet s memory here 
 of the landscape make a part," because we know 
 that the lyrics of our poet are indeed 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 17 
 
 " Songs of that high art 
 Which, as winds do in the pine, 
 Find an answer in each heart," 
 
 and we meet to bear witness to this. 
 
 More than this, we meet to testify our sense of 
 personal obligation to him, not merely for the ex 
 quisite pleasure afforded by the wonderful melody 
 of his verse, but for the didactic force that has im 
 pressed it on us that 
 
 " All common things, each day s events, 
 
 That with the hour begin and end, 
 Our pleasures and our discontents, 
 
 Are rounds by which we may ascend." 
 
 It is no mere gospel of idle contentment with 
 pleasant trifles that he has preached to us. Even 
 the dullest of us could not read him without being 
 moved at least to strive to place ourselves on a 
 higher plane, Excelsior. In ancient days poet 
 and seer were convertible terms, and the best of 
 our modern poets are prophets also. 
 
 What insight was it which made him, in Jan 
 uary, 1861, rouse us with 
 
 " Listen, my children, and you shall hear 
 Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere," 
 
 when all unconsciously we stood so near another 
 and bloodier Lexington ? 
 
 Philanthropy of the purest, patriotism of the 
 most exalted kind, have by turns inspired him ; 
 
18 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 and whether he sang of the " Slave s Dream/ or 
 the " Warning " drawn from the 
 
 " Poor, blind Samson in this land, 
 Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel," 
 
 or of the Cumberland, sunk in Hampton Roads, 
 or of the beautiful youth slain at the ford, the 
 lesson was timely, and it told the story well of 
 the heroism and endurance which carried this 
 nation through its last great struggle triumphant. 
 We meet to pass an hour in expressing our ad 
 miration for the bard, the scholar, and the patriot, 
 whose every utterance from his youth up has 
 been pure and noble, and has tended to raise this 
 nation in the scale of humanity. I am proud to 
 say that when he lived with us he was an active 
 member of this Society, and the ripe and golden 
 fruits of his historical studies we have in the story 
 of Priscilla, the Puritan Maiden ; in the pen 
 sive loveliness of "Evangeline," that tale of the 
 " strength, submission, and patience " of the Aca 
 dian refugees ; in the musical song of " Hiawa 
 tha ; " and in many another gem evoked from the 
 Chronicles of the Past and set in tuneful verse. 
 But, after all, it seems to me that that which 
 brings him nearer to our hearts, and has more to 
 do with bringing us together here to-night, than 
 his wide-spread renown, or the fame that attaches 
 to his more stately and elaborate poems, is the 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 19 
 
 light which he has thrown around home and 
 hearth and heart in some of those lighter but un- 
 equaled lyrics, which from time to time have 
 "gone through us with a thrill/ which are 
 haunting our memories still, and which are and 
 will always be dear to us because dear to those 
 whom we love. Who of us can think of home, 
 now, and all that we hold dear in it, without some 
 how associating with it and them reminiscences of 
 " The Footsteps of Angels," " The Golden Mile- 
 Stone," " The Old Clock on the Stairs," " The 
 Children s Hour," "The Fire of Drift-Wood," 
 " The Wind over the Chimney," and " Daybreak," 
 and "Twilight," and " Curfew," and the "Psalm," 
 and the " Goblet of Life," and " The Keaper and 
 the Flowers"? And where can I stop, having 
 begun to enumerate ? 
 
 For nearly thirty years I have occupied the 
 house he lived in when in Brunswick, an old 
 house whose first proprietors have long since 
 passed away ; and I sometimes wonder whether it 
 is, in his thought, one of the " Haunted Houses," 
 through whose 
 
 " Open doors 
 
 The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, 
 With feet that make no sound upon the floors." 
 
 Since the wonderful legend of " Sandalphon " 
 first made a lodgment in my memory, more than 
 
20 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 a score of years ago, I cannot number the times I 
 have been called upon to repeat it in the stillness 
 of the evening hour and in the weary night 
 watches, because its melodious numbers had in 
 them a spell "to quiet the fever and pain " of one 
 who has now for years breathed the fragrance that 
 is " wafted through the streets of the city immor 
 tal." And hence it is that " the legend I feel is 
 a part of the hunger and thirst of the heart," and 
 my warmest gratitude goes forth to him who min 
 istered comfort to the invalid in the sweet strains 
 that breathe unwavering faith and trust in the 
 good All-Father. Hence I say that we meet here 
 to express not simply our admiration of the poet, 
 our sense of obligation to the teacher, the patriot, 
 and the philanthropist, but also our reverent affec 
 tion for the man who has done so much to brighten 
 and cheer not only our own lives, but the lives of 
 those we love, in sickness and in health. 
 
 Not he the poet of despair, or morbid melan 
 choly, or depressing doubt, misbegotten by the 
 wild self-conceit which assumes that the finite 
 human intellect is capable of penetrating all mys 
 teries because it has mastered some, and madly 
 argues that it is a proof of superior wisdom to re 
 ject everything it cannot understand. Not so he, 
 but the poet of a broad Christian faith and an 
 unfading hope that " what we know not now we 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 21 
 
 shall know hereafter/ if we strive in earnest to 
 rise above " that which is of the earth earthy." 
 
 I think his motto in all his productions must 
 have been, " Nee satis est pulchra esse poemata 
 dulcia sunto." 
 
 " T is not enough a poem s finely writ ; 
 It must affect and captivate the soul." 
 
 If success can be predicated of any mortal life, 
 surely his has been a success. 
 
 Ilacriv yap cv^>povo\i(JL crv^tx^ta^et rv^rj. 
 
 The Maine Historical Society and their guests, 
 assembled at his birthplace to celebrate the birth 
 day of their former member, the renowned poet 
 Longfellow, send him their fervent and united 
 wishes for his health and happiness. 
 
LA.US IAUREATI. 
 
 BY JAMES PHINNEY BAXTER, PORTLAND. 
 
 I SING no common theme, but of a man, 
 One who, full-voiced, the highway of the King 
 Gladdens with song ; inspiring lives which span 
 A fruitless field where little joy may spring, 
 And which, from birth, may win no better thing 
 Than paltry bread, and shelter from the blast, 
 Till unto death s low house they come at last. 
 
 It needs more fluent tongue than mine to sing 
 
 In fitting measure of a poet born, 
 
 Greater than crosiered priest or sceptred king, 
 
 Since such are made, and may by chance be shorn 
 
 Of all their glory by to-morrow morn ; 
 
 But born a poet, he shall surely be 
 
 Ever a poet to eternity. 
 
 Of such I strive to sing : one who shall live 
 
 In Fame s high house while stars make glad the sky, 
 
 That happy house which many hapless give 
 
 Life s choicest pearls to gain, since none may die 
 
 Who come within its halls so fair and high. 
 
 Would I might win it, with no thought but this, 
 
 That I might others bring soul-health and bliss. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 23 
 
 But, Master, one who is about to die 
 
 Brings thee a crown, which, though not one of bay, 
 
 May haply mind thee of some things gone by 
 
 Pleasant to think of matters put away 
 
 In rooms forgot, where truant memories play 
 
 At hide and seek ; for beareth it, forsooth, 
 
 Savor of things well loved by thee in youth. 
 
 Of Deering s Woods, which whisper softly still, 
 
 A boy s will is the wind s will, as of yore 
 
 They lisped to thee, where sweet-voiced birds would trill, 
 
 In haunts wherein thou soughtest tuneful lore ; 
 
 Of bluff and beach along our rugged shore 
 
 Girting the bay, whose isles enchanted drew 
 
 Thy venturous thoughts to havens ever new. 
 
 Dear Master, let me take thy hand a space 
 And lead thee gently wheresoe er I may ; 
 With the salt sea s cool breath upon thy face, 
 And in thine ears the music of the spray, 
 Which rapt in days agone thy soul away, 
 Where hung full low the golden fruit of truth, 
 Within the reach of thy aspiring youth. 
 
 Thou knowest well the place : here built George Cleeves 
 Almost two centuries before thy birth ; 
 Here was his corn-field ; here his lowly eaves 
 Sheltered the swallows, and around his hearth 
 The red-men crouched poor souls of little worth : 
 Thou with clear vision seest them, I know, 
 As they were in the flesh long years ago. 
 
24 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Surely the shrewd, persistent pioneer 
 
 Built better than he knew : he thought to build 
 
 A shelter for himself, his kith and gear ; 
 
 But felled the trees, and grubbed and plowed and tilled, 
 
 That in the course of time might be fulfilled 
 
 A wondrous purpose, being no less than this, 
 
 That here a poet might be born to bliss. 
 
 Ah I could he but have tracked adown the dim, 
 Long, weary path of years, and stood to-day 
 With thee and me, how would the eyes of him 
 Have flashed with pride and joy to hear men say, 
 Here Cleeves built the first house in Casco Bay ! 
 Here, too, was our loved laureate s place of birth, 
 And sooth, God sent his singers upon earth. 
 
 Thou canst not find Clay Cove ? T was here, wilt say, 
 
 When thou didst listen to the runnet s song, 
 
 Leaping to meet the full lips of the bay. 
 
 Well, let us climb Munjoy; lo ! good and strong, 
 
 In the same coat of red it hath so long 
 
 Disported bravely, spite of flood and flame, 
 
 The old Observatory, still the same. 
 
 And there the forts, and farther seaward yet, 
 A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, 
 The light-house standeth still, as firmly set 
 Upon its flinty throne amidst the spray 
 As erst when thou didst dream thy soul away 
 To the hoarse Hebrides, or bright Azore, 
 Or flashing surges of San Salvador. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 25 
 
 And, ere we leave, look where still sleep the two 
 Brave captains, who in bloody shrouds were brought 
 From the great sea-fight, whilst the bugles blew, 
 And drums rolled, and gaunt cannon terror wrought 
 In childish hearts ; the place thou oft has sought 
 To dream the fight o er, while the busy hum 
 Of toil from wharf and street would strangely come. 
 
 But now along the teeming thoroughfare 
 Thread we our way. Strange faces, sayest thou ? 
 Yet names well known to thee some haply bear, 
 And shouldst thou scan more closely face and brow, 
 Old looks would come well known to thee enow, 
 Which shone on faces of the girls and boys 
 Who shared with thee the sweets of youthful joys. 
 
 And now we come where, rough with rent and scar, 
 The ancient rope- walk stood, low roofed and gray, 
 Embalmed with scent of oakum, flax, and tar, 
 Cob webbed and dim, and crammed with strange array 
 Of things which lure the thoughts of youth away 
 To wondrous climes, where never ship hath been, 
 Nor foot hath .trod, nor curious eye hath seen. 
 
 Gone? Why, I dreamt ! A moment since twas there, 
 Or seemed to be. Their lives frail thread, t is true, 
 The spinners long since spun ; the maidens fair, 
 Swinging and laughing as their shadows flew 
 Along the grass, have swung from earthly view, 
 And the gay mountebanks have vaulted quite 
 Into oblivion s eternal night. 
 
26 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 And they are gone : the woman at the well ; 
 The old man ringing in the noontide heat ; 
 The shameless convicts with their faces fell ; 
 The boy and kite, and steeds with flying feet, 
 And sportsmen ambushed midst of leafage sweet; 
 Aye, and the ships rejoicing in the breeze 
 Are rotting on the shores of unknown seas. 
 
 But, Master, let us fare to old Bramhall, 
 
 Up Free and Main streets this is State ; full well 
 
 The house where Mellen lived thou must recall, 
 
 Seeing a poet once therein might dwell; 
 
 Though short of Fame s fair house he hapless fell, 
 
 Tracing his name half listless, in the reach 
 
 Of every tide which sweeps Time s treacherous beach. 
 
 And here is cool Bramhall, and there still stands 
 The Deering house, as thou hast known it long ; 
 Where Bracket s house stood, ere with murderous hands 
 The Indians thronged around it witched of wrong 
 One August day, with torch and savage song, 
 And swept it from the earth. Ah ! little hope 
 Beamed then within poor Falmouth s horoscope. 
 
 But time hath made all right now. See, where rest 
 The eternal hills, which once, with fervid eyes, 
 The Indian saw within the havening west, 
 And called the crystal mountains, poetwise, 
 Dreaming that thitherward lay Paradise ; 
 Whither each evening went the chief of day, 
 Bedecked with painted robes and feathers gay. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 27 
 
 T was not so far amiss, for type more grand. 
 
 Of the celestial hills no eye hath seen : 
 
 Towering in splendid majesty they stand, 
 
 Like portals heaven s immortal courts to screen, 
 
 Curtained with buoyant clouds of purest sheen, 
 
 Which rise and fall, yet ever seem to hold 
 
 A mystery bosomed in each shadowy fold. 
 
 Pile upon pile they rise and meet the sky, 
 
 Blue, over-arching, like a mighty dome. 
 
 Even such a temple doth my spirit s eye 
 
 Limn for those souls who through achievement come 
 
 To well- won fame. Lo ! in this glorious home 
 
 I see them sit august, and, crowned with bays, 
 
 Across the silent centuries calmly gaze. 
 
 Homer unkempt, with close, sagacious look ; 
 Plato, in whose calm face pale mysteries bide ; 
 Virgil, smooth-cheeked with oaten pipe and crook; 
 Grave Sophocles, with eyes unsatisfied, 
 Where riddles all unread in ambush hide ; 
 Keen-eyed Euripides, whose books were men, 
 And jovial Horace with satiric pen. 
 
 And dear old Chaucer, loved of gods and men, 
 Benign, keen-witted, child-like, quaint, and wise ; 
 Spenser, pure knight, whose lance was his good pen, 
 The praise of ladyes fayre his loved emprise ; 
 Great Shakespeare, with a seer s unhindered eyes ; 
 Blind Milton, listening for a seraph s wings ; 
 And Burns, in whose blithe face a sky-lark sings ; 
 
28 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Wordsworth, so simple ; and poor fragile Keats, 
 
 Who poured his heart out like a nightingale, 
 
 Whose affluent verse half cloys with wealth of sweets, 
 
 A master, spite of faulty work and frail, 
 
 Whose luckless loss the world full long shall wail ; 
 
 And here, placed fairly in this hall of Fame, 
 
 A glorious seat with newly-carven name. 
 
 T is plain, dear Master, t is thy name, forsooth, 
 
 Deep graven in the everlasting stone, 
 
 There shall it be untouched of Time s sharp tooth, 
 
 While sunshine kisses bud to bloom. And zone 
 
 Answers to zone with fruitage all its own ; 
 
 And quiring stars, with universal song, 
 
 The boundless arch of heaven majestic throng. 
 
 Here will I bid thee, Master, fond good-by, 
 Wishing thee soul-health and full many a day 
 Of blissful living, ere thou mayest try 
 The scope of other joys. And now, I may 
 This wreath from Deering s Woods, O Master, lay 
 Upon thy brow. God speed thee while the sun 
 Shines on the faithful work which thou hast done. 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW AND HIS PATER 
 NAL ANCESTRY. 
 
 BY REV. HENUY S. BURRAGE, PORTLAND. 
 
 IN Parson Smith s "Journal," the source of so 
 much of what we know concerning the early his 
 tory of Portland, occurs this entry under date of 
 April 11, 1745: " Mr. Longfellow came here to 
 live." This was Stephen Longfellow, the great 
 grandfather of the poet, Henry Wadsworth Long 
 fellow, who was born in Portland, February 27, 
 1807, and in honor of whose seventy-fifth birth 
 day we are now assembled. 
 
 Stephen Longfellow was a native of Newbury, 
 Mass. His grandfather, William Longfellow, was 
 born in Yorkshire County, England, about the 
 year 1651. In early life he came to Newbury, 
 where, November 10, 1678, he was married to 
 Anne, daughter of Henry Sewall (who began the 
 settlement of Newbury), and a sister of Samuel 
 Sewall, afterwards Chief Justice of the Province 
 of Massachusetts Bay, and Judge of Probate for 
 Suffolk County. Concerning his occupation, we 
 only know that he was a merchant, and resided in 
 
30 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 that part of the town then known as the "Falls." 
 In 1690, as Ensign of the Newbury company, he 
 had a part in the ill-fated expedition to Quebec, 
 under Sir William Phips. Earlier in the year 
 Sir William had captured the French stronghold, 
 Port Royal. It was now his purpose to strike a 
 more decisive blow at the French power in North 
 America. A larger command was given to him. 
 With a fleet consisting of thirty-two vessels, hav 
 ing on board 2,200 soldiers, he sailed from Boston 
 Harbor, August 9th. His progress was slow, and 
 it was not until October 5th that he appeared be 
 fore Quebec. The attempt to capture the place 
 failed, and the expedition was abandoned. On 
 the return a violent storm overtook the fleet in 
 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, scattered the vessels, 
 and one of them, containing the Newbury com 
 pany, went ashore at Anticosti, a desolate island, 
 and William Longfellow, with nine others, was 
 drowned. This was on the night of the 31st of 
 October. The sad tidings at length reached New 
 bury. Under date of November 21st, Judge Sew- 
 all made this entry in his diary : 
 
 " T was Tuesday, the 18th of November, that I heard 
 of the death of Cnpt. Stephen Greenleaf, Lieut. James 
 Smith, and Ensign William Longfellow, Sergeant In 
 crease Pilsbury, who, with Will Mitchell, Jabez Mnsgro, 
 and four more, were drowned at Cape Britoon [an error] 
 on Friday night, the last of October." 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 31 
 
 Of William Longfellow s six children, one, 
 named Stephen Longfellow (for Stephen Dummer, 
 Mrs. Longfellow s grandfather), had died in early 
 childhood, and to another son, born September 22, 
 1685, the same name was given. This was the 
 father of Stephen Longfellow, who came to Port 
 land in 1745. Concerning his quiet, uneventful 
 life we know but little. He became a blacksmith, 
 and we may picture him, like the poet s hero of 
 the village smithy, with large and sinewy hands, 
 brawny arms, his brow wet with honest sweat, as 
 he swings his heavy sledge " with measured beat 
 and slow." 
 
 Stephen Longfellow, the blacksmith, married, 
 March 25, 1714, Abigail Tompson, daughter of 
 Rev. Edward Tompson, of Marshfield, by whom 
 he had ten children. In his son Stephen, born 
 February 7, 1723, he seems early to have discov 
 ered signs of intellectual promise, and he sent him 
 to Harvard College, where he was graduated in 
 1742. The father was permitted to follow the 
 honorable career of his son for nineteen years 
 after he came to Portland ; and when he died, 
 November 7, 1764, he left him a small legacy. It 
 is an evidence of the son s affectionate regard for 
 his father that, on receiving this legacy, he formed 
 the purpose of converting it into a permanent 
 memorial. Taking the silver coin, he sent it by 
 
32 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 packet to Boston ; but unfortunately the vessel 
 was lost, and the money with it. When the ti 
 dings reached Mr. Longfellow, he made up a like 
 amount of silver coin, which reached Boston in 
 safety, and was manufactured by John Butler, a 
 well-known silversmith, into a tankard, a can, and 
 two porringers. Each bore the initials S. L., and 
 the added words of grateful remembrance, Ex Dono 
 Patris. The tankard has been preserved ; and 
 one of the porringers, after a somewhat eventful 
 history, has found its way back into the family, 
 and is one of the treasures of the poet s brother, 
 Alexander W. Longfellow. 
 
 Before taking up his residence in Portland, 
 Stephen Longfellow had been keeping school in 
 York. He came to Portland on the following let 
 ter of invitation from Parson Smith : 
 
 FALMOUTII, November 15, 1744. 
 
 g IR? We need a school-master. Mr. Plaisted advises 
 
 of your being at liberty. If you will undertake the serv 
 ice in this place, you may depend upon our being gener 
 ous, and your being satisfied. I wish you d come as 
 soon as possible, and doubt not but you 11 find things 
 much to your content. Your humble ser t, 
 
 THOS. SMITH. 
 
 P. S. I write in the name and with the power of the 
 selectmen of the town. If you can t serve us, pray ad 
 vise us of it per first opportunity. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 33 
 
 The invitation was favorably considered, and in 
 April following, as Parson Smith records, Mr. 
 Longfellow came here to enter upon his work. 
 An appropriation of fifty pounds had been voted 
 by the town toward the salary of a grammar 
 teacher ; and the people on the Neck, as Portland 
 was then called, were to have his exclusive serv 
 ices, provided they contributed the remainder of 
 his salary. Mr. Longfellow opened his school 
 April 17, 1745, in a building on the corner of 
 Middle Street and School, now Pearl Street. The 
 number of scholars is not known. In the follow 
 ing year it was fifty, and on the list which has 
 been preserved occur the names of the prominent 
 families of that day, Smith, Moody, Brackett, 
 Waite, Bradbury, Jones, Cox, Gooding, Freeman, 
 Bryant, Coffin, Stickney, Proctor, and Motley. For 
 that year his salary was two hundred pounds. As 
 the currency then was at a depreciation of seven 
 to one, it will be seen that the office was not a 
 very remunerative one even with the tuition, 
 which for each scholar was eighteen shillings and 
 eight pence per year, and eight shillings per 
 quarter. 
 
 In a manuscript note, in his copy of Smith s 
 " Journal," now in the Public Library, Mr. Willis 
 says, " I think Mr. Longfellow boarded with Mr. 
 Smith when he came here until his marriage." 
 
 3 
 
34 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 This occurred October 19, 1749. His wife was 
 Tabitha Bragdon, a daughter of Samuel Bragdon, 
 of York. After he built his house on Fore Street, 
 on the lot now occupied by the Eagle Sugar Ee- 
 finery, he transferred his school thither, and he 
 continued to be the principal instructor in the 
 town until 1760, when he was appointed Clerk of 
 the Judicial Court. When Mowatt destroyed the 
 town, October 18, 1775, Mr. Longfellow s house 
 was burned. The committee appointed to examine 
 and liquidate the accounts of those who suffered 
 in the burning of the town estimated his loss at 
 1,119. The house was not rebuilt, and the old 
 cellar was visible on the unoccupied lot until the 
 erection of the brick building by the Sugar Ee- 
 finery, a quarter of a century ago. 
 
 After the destruction of his house, Mr. Longfel 
 low removed to Gorham, where he resided until 
 his death, May 1, 1790. In a brief sketch of his 
 life Mr. Willis says, " Mr. Longfellow filled many 
 important offices in the town to universal accept 
 ance. He was about fifteen years grammar-school 
 master ; parish clerk twenty-three years ; town 
 clerk twenty-two years ; many years clerk of the 
 proprietors of the common land ; and from the 
 establishment of the county, in 1760, to the com 
 mencement of the Revolution, in 1775, he was 
 Eegister of Probate and Clerk of the Judicial 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 35 
 
 Courts. His handwriting, in beautiful characters, 
 symbolical of the purity and excellence of his own 
 moral character, is impressed on all the records of 
 the town and county through many successive 
 years." 
 
 Of his three sons, Stephen, Samuel, and William, 
 the latter died in early life, while Samuel left no 
 children. Stephen, the oldest son, was born Au 
 gust 3, 1750. December 13, 1773, he married 
 Patience Young, of York. His home was in Gor- 
 ham, and there he died, greatly respected, May 
 28, 1824. He was extensively employed as a 
 surveyor, and received appointments to various 
 town offices. He represented Gorham in the 
 General Court of Massachusetts eight years. For 
 several years he was Senator from Cumberland 
 County. He was Judge of the Court of Common 
 Pleas from 1797 to 1811, and there are those still 
 among us who remember him as he drove into 
 Portland in an old square-top chaise, and, dis 
 mounting, made his way into the Court House 
 escorted by the sheriff. He was a fine-looking 
 gentleman, with the bearing of the old school, was 
 erect, portly, rather taller than the average, had 
 a strongly marked face, and his hair was tied be 
 hind in a club with black ribbon. To the close of 
 his life he wore the old-style dress knee-breeches, 
 a long waistcoat, and white top boots. He was a 
 
36 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 man of sterling qualities of mind and heart, great 
 integrity, and sound common sense. 
 
 Stephen, his second child, born in Gorham 
 March 23, 1776, was the father of Henry Wads- 
 worth Longfellow. He entered Harvard College 
 in 1794. A college friend, Daniel Appleton White, 
 two years his senior, said of him in later life, 
 " He was evidently a well-bred gentleman when 
 he left the paternal mansion for the University. 
 He seemed to breathe an atmosphere of purity, as 
 his natural element, while his bright intelligence, 
 buoyant spirits, and social warmth diffused a sun 
 shine of joy that made his presence always glad 
 some." That he was a favorite in his class is the 
 testimony of his associates. But he went to col 
 lege for other purposes than good fellowship. He 
 was an earnest, exemplary student. His scholar 
 ship entitled him to high rank, and having com 
 pleted the course he left the University with a full 
 share of its honors. 
 
 After his graduation, in 1798, Mr. Longfellow 
 entered the law office of Salmon Chase, an uncle 
 of Salmon Portland Chase, late Chief Justice of 
 the United States ; and he was admitted to the 
 bar in 1801. He at once entered upon an exten 
 sive and lucrative practice. Three years later, 
 January 1, 1804, he married Zilpah, eldest daugh 
 ter of General Peleg Wadsworth, who built and 
 
SE VENTY-FIFTH BIR THDA Y. 37 
 
 then occupied the brick house which is still stand 
 ing on Congress Street, adjoining the Preble House, 
 and is known as the Longfellow House. In the 
 same year he was selected by the citizens of the 
 town to deliver an oration on the Fourth of July. 
 After his marriage Mr. Longfellow lived a year 
 in the Wadsworth House. During the next year 
 his home was in a small house on the corner of 
 Temple Street, opposite the First Parish Church. 
 Samuel Stephenson, a rich merchant of Portland, 
 then lived in the large square wooden house which 
 is still standing at the corner of Fore and Hancock 
 streets. His wife, Abigail Longfellow, was a sister 
 of Stephen Longfellow, the lawyer, and as her 
 husband had been suddenly called to the West 
 Indies, on business, she invited her brother with 
 his family to spend the winter of 1806-7 with her. 
 Thus it was that on the 27th of February, 1807, 
 in this house, which should be known as the 
 Stephenson and not the Longfellow House, and 
 during this temporary residence, was born their 
 second son, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, named 
 for Mrs. Longfellow s brother, Lieutenant Henry 
 Wadsworth of the U. S. Navy, who on the night 
 of September 4, 1804, in the harbor of Tripoli, lost 
 his life, a voluntary sacrifice, in a gallant endeavor 
 to destroy the enemy s flotilla by a fire-ship. In 
 the spring of 1807, General Wadsworth, Mrs. Long- 
 
38 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 fellow s father, having removed to Hiram in order 
 to occupy and improve a large tract of land which 
 he had bought, Stephen Longfellow took up his 
 residence in the brick house which General Wads- 
 worth had vacated, and made it henceforth his 
 home. 
 
 In 1814 he was sent to the Legislature of Massa 
 chusetts, and while engaged in this service he was 
 chosen a member of the celebrated Hartford Con 
 vention. In 1816 he was made a presidential 
 elector. In 1822 he was elected a member of the 
 18th Congress. At the close of his congressional 
 term he retired from political life, and devoted his 
 remaining years to his profession. In 1825, when 
 Lafayette visited Portland, Mr. Longfellow was 
 appointed to give the address of welcome. The 
 service was fittingly performed. In his reply La 
 fayette made this graceful allusion to Mr. Long 
 fellow : " While I offer to the people of Portland, 
 and to you, gentlemen, my respectful thanks, I 
 am happy to recognize in the kind organ of their 
 kindness to me the member of Congress who 
 shared in the flattering invitation which has been 
 to me a source of inexpressible honor and delight." 
 In 1828 Mr. Longfellow received the degree of 
 LL. D. from Bowdoin College, of which he was a 
 Trustee from 1817 to 1836. He was Recording 
 Secretary of the Maine Historical Society from 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 39 
 
 1828 to 1830, and in 1834 he was elected Presi 
 dent of the Society. He died August 3, 1849, 
 aged seventy-four years. In his " Law, Courts, 
 and Lawyers of Maine," Mr. Willis says of him, 
 " No man more surely gained the confidence of all 
 who approached him, or held it firmer ; and those 
 who knew him best loved him most. In the man 
 agement of his causes, he went with zeal and 
 directness of purpose to every point which could 
 sustain it ; there was no traveling out of the rec 
 ord with him, nor a wandering away from the line 
 of his argument after figures of speech or fine 
 rhetoric, but he was plain, straightforward, and 
 effective in his appeals to the jury, and by his 
 frank and cordial manner won them to his cause." 
 
 Such, in public life, was the father of Henry 
 Wadsworth Longfellow. In the domestic circle 
 the noble traits of his character were no less ap 
 parent. His home was one of refinement and the 
 purest social virtues ; and she who shared its direc 
 tion with him not only adorned it with rare wom 
 anly grace, but gave to it many an added charm. 
 
 Here the poet passed his earlier years. How 
 well he remembers the Portland of those years he 
 has told us in his delightful poem, "My Lost 
 Youth : "- 
 
 I remember the black wharves and the slips, 
 And the sea-tides tossing free ; 
 
40 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
 
 And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
 And the magic of the sea. 
 
 And the voice of that wayward song 
 Is singing and saying still : 
 "A boy s will is the wind s will, 
 
 And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 
 
 I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 
 
 And the fort upon the hill ; 
 The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar, 
 The drum-beat repeated o er and o er, 
 
 And the bugle wild and shrill. 
 And the music of that old song 
 
 Throbs in my memory still : 
 
 " A boy s will is the wind s will, 
 And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 
 
 I remember the sea-fight far away, 
 
 How it thundered o er the tide ! 
 
 And the dead captains, as they lay 
 
 In their graves, o er-looking the tranquil bay, 
 "Where they in battle died. 
 
 And the sound of that mournful song 
 Goes through me with a thrill : 
 " A boy s will is the wind s will, 
 
 And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 
 
 I can see the breezy dome of groves, 
 
 The shadows of Deering s Woods : 
 And the friendships old and the early loves 
 Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves 
 In quiet neighborhoods. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 41 
 
 And the verse of that sweet old song, 
 
 It flutters and murmurs still : 
 
 U A boy s will is the wind s will, 
 And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 
 
 I remember the gleams and glooms that dart 
 
 Across the school-boy s brain ; 
 The song and the silence in the heart, 
 That in part are prophecies, and in part 
 
 Are longings wild and vain. 
 And the voice of that fitful song 
 
 Sings on, and is never still : 
 
 " A boy s will is the wind s will, 
 And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 
 
 The first school that Mr. Longfellow attended 
 was kept by Marm Fellows in a small brick school- 
 house on Spring Street, above High, and just be 
 low the house in which Dr. Bacon now lives. Later 
 he went to the town school in Love Lane, now 
 Centre Street, where Judge Goddard s house 
 stands. Here, however, he remained only a week 
 or two, and he was then placed in the private 
 school of Nathaniel H. Carter, which was kept in 
 a little one-story wooden house on the west side 
 of Preble Street, near Congress. Afterwards he 
 attended the Portland Academy under the same 
 master, and also under the mastership of Mr. 
 Bezaleel Cushman, a graduate of Dartmouth Col 
 lege, who took charge of the school in 1815, and 
 continued in the position twenty-six years. One 
 
42 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 of his assistants, while Mr. Longfellow was con 
 nected with the school, was Jacob Abbott. Under 
 such inspiring teachers his progress was rapid, 
 and in 1821, at the age of fourteen, he entered 
 Bowdoin College, though, for the most part, dur 
 ing the first year of his college course, he pursued 
 his studies at home. 
 
 The class which he entered was a brilliant one. 
 In it were sons of some of the choicest families 
 in Northern New England; and among them 
 were those who were to achieve a wide reputation 
 in the field of letters, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
 George B. Cheever, John S. C. Abbott, and 
 others at the bar and in political life, conspicuously 
 the lamented Cilley, and our honored President, 
 Hon. J. W. Bradbury, whose absence to-night we 
 all so greatly regret. One of his classmates, the 
 Rev. Daniel Shepley, D. D., referring to Longfellow 
 as a student, says, "He gave diligent heed to all 
 departments of study in the prescribed course, and 
 excelled in all, while his enthusiasm moved in the 
 direction it has taken in subsequent life. His 
 themes, felicitous translations of Horace and occa 
 sional contributions to the press, drew marked at 
 tention to him, and led to the expectation that his 
 would be an honorable literary career." 
 
 When he entered college, Mr. Longfellow had 
 already occupied the poet s corner in the Portland 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 43 
 
 newspapers. His first published poem was on 
 Lovell s Fight. In his complete poetical works as 
 now issued are several poems, which, Mr. Long 
 fellow tells us, were written for the most part dur 
 ing his college life, and all of them before he was 
 nineteen years of age. They were first published 
 in " The United States Literary Gazette," edited 
 by James G. Carter, and thence found their way 
 into the columns of the daily and weekly papers 
 of the country. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow graduated second in a class of 
 thirty- seven. His theme Commencement Day 
 was " Native Writers." So full was his future of 
 promise that when, shortly after he graduated, it 
 was proposed to establish a chair of Modern Lan 
 guages in Bowdoin College, he was elected to the 
 professorship, being then only nineteen years of 
 age. But he was not asked to take the position 
 before he had qualified himself for its duties. He 
 accordingly went abroad, and the next three years 
 and a half were spent in the study of the more 
 important languages of Europe on their native 
 soil. These were years of earnest, faithful toil, 
 and when he returned to Brunswick, in 1829, he 
 brought with him the rich treasures he had made 
 his own during his residence in France, Spain, It 
 aly, Germany, Holland, and England. His reputa 
 tion as an instructor was soon established. Presi- 
 
44 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 dent Hamlin, of Middlebury College, who entered 
 Bowdoin in 1830, says, " Longfellow had occu 
 pied the chair but one year. Our class numbered 
 fifty-two, the largest Freshman class that had, 
 up to that time, entered college, and many of 
 its members were attracted by Longfellow s rep 
 utation." 
 
 In September, 1831, Mr. Longfellow was mar 
 ried to Mary S. Potter, daughter of Judge Barrett 
 Potter, of Portland. His first published poetical 
 work, which appeared in 1833, was a translation 
 of the " Coplas de Jorge Manrique," to which was 
 prefixed an Introductory Essay on the Moral and 
 Devotional Poetry of Spain. In the same year he 
 published the first two numbers of " Outre-Mer," 
 and the whole work appeared two years later. 
 
 During his residence at Brunswick, Mr. Long 
 fellow became a member of the Maine Historical 
 Society, a fact which we recall to-night with es 
 pecial interest; and in 1834 he held the office of 
 Librarian and Cabinet Keeper. 
 
 At this time, Mr. George Ticknor, the learned 
 professor of modern languages in Harvard Univer 
 sity, resigned, and the publication of " Outre- 
 Mer " and Mr. Longfellow s rapidly growing repu 
 tation as a poet led to his appointment as Mr. 
 Ticknor s successor. Before entering upon his 
 professorship at Cambridge, in order to study the 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 45 
 
 languages of Northern Europe, he again visited 
 the Old World. The summer was spent in Norway 
 and Sweden, and the autumn and winter in Hol 
 land and Germany. But his studies were arrested 
 by the sudden death of his wife, at Rotterdam, 
 November 29, 1835, and in the shadow of this 
 sorrow he was compelled to complete his work 
 abroad. In November, 1836, he returned to the 
 United States, and, after a visit to the home of 
 his childhood, he repaired to Cambridge, and en 
 tered upon his duties as " Smith Professor of 
 Modern Literature." 
 
 Early in his Cambridge life Mr. Longfellow 
 called one day at the Craigie House, which for a 
 time during the Revolution was Washington s 
 headquarters, and at a later date the residence 
 of Edward Everett and Jared Sparks. " I lodge 
 students no longer," said Mrs. Craigie, in answer 
 to the inquiry if she had a vacant room for a 
 lodger. On learning that Mr. Longfellow was not 
 a student, but a professor in the University, she 
 led the way to the room in the southeast corner 
 on the second floor, once General Washington s 
 chamber, and placed it at his disposal. In 1843, 
 on the death of Mrs. Craigie, Longfellow bought 
 the house, and it has since been his home. In 
 this year he was married to Frances Elizabeth 
 Appleton, daughter of Hon. Nathan Appleton, of 
 
46 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Boston. In this historic dwelling Mr. Longfel 
 low s children, two sons and four daughters, were 
 born ; and here, too, occurred the sudden and sor 
 rowful death of his wife, an affliction most keenly 
 felt, and which has chastened all his subsequent 
 years. 
 
 In the University, as one of his pupils, the Kev. 
 Edward Everett Hale, tells us, " his regular duty 
 was the oversight of five or more instructors who 
 were teaching French, German, Italian, Spanish, 
 Portuguese, to two or three hundred under-gradu- 
 ates. . . . We never knew when he might look 
 in on a recitation and virtually conduct it. We 
 were delighted to have him come. Any slipshod 
 work of some poor wretch from France, who was 
 tormented by wild-cat Sophomores, would be made 
 straight and decorous and all right. We all knew 
 he was a poet, and were proud to have him in the 
 college, but at the same time we respected him as 
 a man of affairs." 
 
 Indeed, not a little of his time must have been 
 given to literary work. His study, as now, was 
 on the lower floor, under the southeast chamber 
 which he occupied when he first made his home 
 in the Craigie Mansion. It was the room in which 
 Washington transacted the business of his office as 
 Commander-in-Chief, a fact which the poet him 
 self has recorded in the lines, 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 47 
 
 " Yes, within this very room 
 Sat he in those hours of gloom, 
 
 Weary both in heart and head." 
 
 Dr. Lyman Abbott, in a description of Mr. 
 Longfellow s study, published in the " Christian 
 Union " a year ago, says, " The table is piled with 
 pamphlets and papers in orderly confusion ; a 
 high desk in one corner suggests a practice of 
 standing while writing, and gives a hint of one 
 secret of the poet s singularly erect form at an 
 age when the body generally begins to stoop and 
 the shoulders to grow round ; an orange-tree 
 stands in one window ; near it a bronze stork 
 keeps watch ; by the side of the open fire is the 
 children s chair ; on the table is Coleridge s ink 
 stand ; upon the walls are crayon likenesses of 
 Emerson, Hawthorne, Felton, and Sumner; and 
 on one of the book-shelves, which fill all the spare 
 wall-space and occupy even one of the windows, 
 are, rarest treasure of all, the poet s own works in 
 their original manuscript, carefully preserved in 
 handsome and substantial bindings." Here, amid 
 these pleasant surroundings, have been written in 
 successive years so many of those poems, 
 
 " Voices and melodies from beyond the gates," 
 which have charmed so many waiting hearts in 
 many lands. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow retained his professorship at 
 
48 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Cambridge seventeen years, and then resigned, in 
 order to give himself wholly to literary work. In 
 1859 he received from Harvard College the hon 
 orary degree of LL. D. ; and on revisiting Europe 
 in 1868-69 he received the degree of D. C. L. at 
 both Cambridge and Oxford. This was a just rec 
 ognition of his extended fame, an expression of 
 the high honor in which he was held by men of 
 letters on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
 Throughout his long career as a poet Mr. Long 
 fellow has not been conspicuous upon public oc 
 casions. What he has written has been by an 
 impulse from within, not from without. His 
 "Morituri Salutamus," read at Bowdoin College in 
 1875, was not an exception. It w r as the fiftieth 
 anniversary of his college class, and though he 
 was asked to honor the day with his verse, these 
 words that breathe and thoughts that burn bore 
 witness to the pure source from which they came. 
 Of those who were present on that memorable 
 day none will ever forget the scene in the church 
 when the now venerable poet, surrounded by his 
 classmates, saluted the well-known places of his 
 youth, beloved instructors, of whom all save one 
 had passed into the land of shadows, the students 
 who filled the seats he and his companions had 
 once occupied, and finally his classmates, 
 
 " Against whose familiar names not yet 
 The fatal asterisk of death is set." 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 49 
 
 One of these classmates, the Rev. David Shep- 
 ley, D. D., referring to the poet, says, "How did 
 we exult in his pure character and his splendid 
 reputation ! With what delight gaze upon his in 
 telligent and benignant countenance ! With what 
 moistening eye listen to his words ! And what 
 limit was there to the blessing we desired for him 
 from the Infinite Author of mind ! " And he 
 adds, " Just before leaving for our respective 
 homes, we gathered in a retired college room for 
 the last time, talked together a half -hour as of 
 old, agreed to exchange photographs, and prayed 
 together; then going forth and standing for a 
 moment once more under the branches of the old 
 tree, in silence we took each other by the hand 
 and separated, knowing well that Brunswick will 
 not again witness a gathering of the class of 
 1825." 
 
 But the poet had not indulged in any vain re 
 grets. Manifestly he revealed somewhat his own 
 purpose when, in closing his poem, on that occa 
 sion, he said, 
 
 " Something remains for us to do or dare ; 
 Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear. 
 
 For age is opportunity no less 
 Than youth itself, though in another dress, 
 And as the evening twilight fades away, 
 The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day." 
 4 
 
50 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 That opportunity Mr. Longfellow has faithfully 
 used, and long may it be before we shall receive 
 the latest fruit of his noble powers. 
 
 The poet does not forget the place of his birth. 
 It is still to him 
 
 " The beautiful town 
 That is seated by the sea." 
 
 And hither he comes each season, in order that 
 again he may 
 
 " Go up and down 
 The pleasant streets," 
 
 and bring back his lost youth. He was here dur 
 ing the past summer. Strange forms, doubtless, 
 he met, but he himself was not unknown. Indeed, 
 he never walks these streets unrecognized. The 
 recent action of the City Council of Portland in 
 tendering him a public reception on this day, with 
 the hospitalities of the city, was but the expression 
 of a hearty desire on the part of the citizens of 
 Portland to do honor to one who has conferred so 
 much honor upon this "dear old town." To use 
 his own words in the " Golden Legend," 
 
 " Ah, yes ! we all 
 Love him, from the bottom of our hearts ; " 
 
 and we send him a birthday greeting, and add, 
 
 " Be that sad year, O poet, very far, 
 That proves thee mortal by the little star. 
 Yet since thy thoughts live daily in our own, 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 51 
 
 And have no heart to weep or smile alone, 
 Since they are rooted in our souls, and so 
 Will live forever, whither those shall go, 
 Though some late asterisk may mark thy name, 
 It never will be set against thy fame ! 
 For the world s fervent love and praise of thee 
 Have starred it first with immortality." 
 
GENERAL PELEG WADSWORTH, AND THE 
 
 MATERNAL ANCESTRY OF HENRY 
 
 W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 BY HON. WILLIAM GOOLD, WINDHAM. 
 
 THE pleasant duty assigned to me for this occa 
 sion is to trace the origin and history of General 
 Wadsworth, the maternal grandfather of Henry 
 Wads worth Longfellow, who had the military 
 oversight of our frontier district of Maine, imme 
 diately after it was found that the British lodg 
 ment at Bagaduce, in 1779, was intended to be 
 permanent. 
 
 Peleg Wadsworth was the son of Deacon Peleg 
 Wadsworth, of Duxbury, Massachusetts, and the 
 fifth in descent from Christopher Wadsworth, who 
 came from England, and settled in that town pre 
 vious to 1632, and whose known descendants in 
 the United States are now numbered by thou 
 sands. 
 
 Peleg Wadsworth, Jr., was born at Duxbury, 
 May 6, 1748. He graduated at Harvard College 
 in the class of 1769, which numbered thirty-nine, 
 and included several honorable names which added 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 53 
 
 lustre to the class, one of which was Theophilus 
 Parsons, who came to Falmouth as a school-teacher 
 in 1770, and studied law with Theophilus Brad 
 bury ; but the Revolutionary troubles drove him 
 away, and he became Chief Justice of the Massa 
 chusetts Supreme Court. Another member of the 
 class was Alexander Scammell, also of Duxbury, 
 who, after a brilliant military career in the Amer 
 ican army, received an inhuman wound, after be 
 ing taken prisoner at the siege of Yorktown, of 
 which he died a month after. Both Wadsworth 
 and Scammell, after graduation, taught school at 
 Plymouth. In 1772 Wadsworth married Elizabeth 
 Bartlett of that town. Their children, through 
 their mother and grandmother Wadsworth, who 
 was Lusanna Sampson, inherited the blood of five 
 of the Mayflower pilgrims, including Elder Brew- 
 ster and Captain John Alden. 
 
 Immediately after the outrage at Lexington, 
 Peleg Wadsworth raised in the old colony a com 
 pany of minute-men, of which the Continental 
 Congress commissioned him captain in September, 
 1775. He was engineer under General Thomas 
 in laying out the defenses of Roxbury in 1776. 
 He was in Colonel Cotton s regiment, which formed 
 a part of a detachment which was ordered to throw 
 up intrenchments on Dorchester Heights, and was 
 appointed aid to General Ward, when the heights 
 
54 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 were occupied in March. These works compelled 
 Howe s fleet to leave Boston in haste. In 1778 
 Wadsworth was appointed Adjutant-General of his 
 State. 
 
 In 1779 the British naval and army officers at 
 Halifax became sensible that they were suffering 
 from American privateers, which frequented the 
 Penobscot waters, owing to their perfect knowl 
 edge of the numerous coves and harbors, which 
 they could run into at any time to avoid the Brit 
 ish cruisers. 
 
 The Admiral in command foresaw the advantage 
 that would be gained by establishing a naval and 
 military post in this quarter for a harbor of refuge 
 for ships and fugitive loyalists, and to command 
 the near coast and harbors, whence they could ob 
 tain a supply of some kinds of ship timber for the 
 royal dockyard at Halifax. This was the year 
 after the French King had assumed our quarrel 
 with the mother country, and had sent a large fleet 
 and army to our assistance, which gave the colo 
 nies confidence, and made them more aggressive. 
 
 In June, 1779, it was decided at Halifax to send 
 General McLane with a fleet to occupy Bagaduce, 
 as the harbor best situated for their purpose. He 
 arrived on the 12th of June with 900 troops and 
 eight or nine vessels, all less than a frigate, under 
 the command of Captain Henry Mo watt, who had 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 55 
 
 become detestable to all Americans by his cruel 
 burning of old Falmouth, four years previous. The 
 people of Maine appealed to the General Court of 
 Massachusetts for protection, and to have the in 
 vaders driven off by an immediate expedition, be 
 fore they could have time to complete their works 
 of defense. The Massachusetts Board of War 
 were instructed by the Legislature to collect a 
 fleet, state and national, and if necessary to im 
 press any private armed vessels in the harbors of 
 the State into their service, under the promise of 
 fair compensation for all losses and detention. The 
 Executive Department of the Province was then 
 composed of the Council ; there was no State 
 Governor until the next year. The Council or 
 dered Brigadier-Generals Thompson, of Cumber 
 land, and Gushing, of Lincoln, to detach severally 
 GOO men from each of their brigades, and form 
 them into two regiments. General Frost, of York, 
 was directed to detail 300 men from his brigade 
 for a reinforcement, if needed. 
 
 The fleet consisted of nineteen armed vessels, 
 carrying 344 guns, and convoying twenty -four 
 transports. The flag-ship was the new Continental 
 frigate Warren. Of the others, nine were ships, 
 six brigs, and three sloops. The command of the 
 fleet was intrusted to Kichard Saltonstall, of Con 
 necticut, an officer of some naval experience. One 
 
56 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 hundred Massachusetts artillerists were embarked, 
 at Boston under their former commander, Lieu 
 tenant-Colonel Paul Revere, who carried the news 
 to Hancock and Adams at Lexington that the 
 British troops were on the road from Boston, in 
 1775. The command of the land forces was given 
 to Solomon Lovell, of Weymouth, Mass., the brig 
 adier-general of the militia of Suffolk, which then 
 included Norfolk County. He was a man of cour 
 age but no war experience. Peleg Wadsworth, 
 then Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, was the 
 second in command. He had seen some service 
 on Dorchester Heights during the siege of Boston 
 and in other places. The ordnance was intrusted 
 to the command of Colonel Revere. 
 
 The Cumberland County regiment was under 
 the command of Colonel Mitchell, of North Yar 
 mouth. The expedition was popular, and the peo 
 ple engaged in it with alacrity and zeal. Falmouth 
 and Cape Elizabeth contributed a company each, 
 consisting of volunteers from the most respectable 
 families. 
 
 Under date June 20th, Parson Smith of Fal 
 mouth records : " People are everywhere in this 
 State spiritedly appearing in the intended expedi 
 tion to Penobscot in pursuit of the British fleet 
 and army there." This was a state expedition, 
 for which Massachusetts advanced 50,000. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 57 
 
 When the fleet was ready to sail from Towns- 
 hend, now Boothbay, the place of rendezvous, 
 General Lo veil s land forces numbered less than 
 1,000 men, who had been paraded together only 
 once, then at Boothbay. They were raw militia, 
 who had seen no former service, except, perhaps, 
 some individuals who had been in the Continental 
 Army for a short time. It was a spirited body of 
 men. Their fathers had been at the siege of Lou- 
 isburg, thirty years before. In one month from 
 the commencement to organize the expedition, it 
 made its appearance in Penobscot Bay. 
 
 The British commander heard of the American 
 fleet four days before its arrival, and worked night 
 and day to render his fortification defensible, yet 
 it was far from being completed. He at once 
 dispatched a vessel to Halifax, asking for assist 
 ance. On the 28th of July, after waiting two days 
 for a calm, our vessels were drawn up in line of 
 battle, and 200 militiamen and 200 marines were 
 landed. The best landing-places were exposed to 
 Mowatt s guns, and no landing could be effected 
 except on the western side, which was a precipice 
 150 feet high and very steep. This was guarded 
 by a line of the enemy posted on the summit, who 
 opened a brisk fire as soon as the boats came 
 within gunshot, but the shot from the vessels went 
 over their heads. As soon as the men landed the 
 
58 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 boats returned to the fleet, cutting off all means of 
 retreat. No force could reach the summit in the 
 face of such a fire of musketry, so the American 
 troops were divided into three parties. One 
 sought a practicable ascent at the right, one at 
 the left, and the centre kept up a brisk fire to 
 attract the attention of the enemy on the heights. 
 Both the right and left parties gained the summit, 
 followed by the centre in the face of a galling fire, 
 which they were powerless to return. Captain 
 Warren s company of volunteers from Falmouth 
 was the first to form on the heights, when all 
 closed on the enemy, who, after a sharp skirmish, 
 made their escape, leaving thirty men killed and 
 wounded. Of the attacking party of 400, one 
 hundred were killed or wounded. The engage 
 ment was short, but great pluck and courage were 
 shown by the Americans. It has been said that 
 no more brilliant exploit than this was accom 
 plished by our forces during the war, but this is 
 the only bright spot in the record of the expedi 
 tion. After the retreat of the enemy, some slight 
 intrenchments were thrown up by the sadly weak 
 ened little detachment, within 700 yards of the 
 enemy s main works. These intrenchments were 
 held by our men, and thus was made a good be 
 ginning. 
 
 The same morning a council of war was called 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 59 
 
 of the land and naval officers. The former were 
 for summoning the garrison to surrender, but the 
 Commodore and the most of his officers were op 
 posed to the measure. It was next proposed to 
 storm the fort, but the Commodore refused to land 
 any more of his marines, as those at the first land 
 ing suffered severely. The land force alone was 
 deemed insufficient for a successful attack on the 
 works, and a whale-boat express was dispatched 
 to Boston for a reinforcement. General Lovell 
 now commenced a regular investment of the works 
 by zigzag trenches for Kevere s insufficient can 
 non, and approached to musket-shot distance of 
 the fort, so that not one of the garrison dared to 
 show his head above the embankments. 
 
 It was afterwards ascertained that if a surrender 
 had been demanded when first proposed the com 
 manding general was prepared to capitulate, so 
 imperfect were his defenses. Commodore Salton- 
 stall was self-willed, and disagreed with Generals 
 Lovell and Wadsworth. During the two weeks 
 delay the British strengthened their defenses, and 
 inclosed their works with a chevaux-de-frise and 
 an abattis outside of all, which rendered the storm 
 ing project impracticable, if the expected rein 
 forcement had arrived. The American Commo 
 dore kept up a daily cannonade with a show of an 
 attempt to enter the harbor, but it was only a 
 
60 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 show. A deserter from the Americans informed 
 the British commander of an intended attack the 
 next day, which prevented any success. 
 
 On the 13th of August a look-out vessel brought 
 General Lovell news that a British squadron of 
 seven sails was entering Penobscot Bay, in answer 
 to General McLane s application to Halifax on the 
 first discovery of the American fleet. A retreat 
 was immediately ordered by General Lovell, and 
 conducted by General Wadsworth in the night 
 with so much skill that the whole of the troops 
 were on board the transports, undiscovered by the 
 enemy. The British squadron, consisting of one 
 74-gun ship, one frigate, and five smaller vessels, 
 all under the command of Sir John Collier, with 
 1,500 troops on board, entered the harbor the next 
 morning. Saltonstall kept his position until the 
 transports retreated up the river, when a broad 
 side from Collier s ship caused a disorderly flight, 
 and a general chase and indiscriminate destruc 
 tion of the American fleet. Several vessels were 
 blown up by their own crews to prevent their 
 falling into the hands of the enemy. 
 
 The troops and crews of the vessels left them 
 for the woods. Most of the officers and men of 
 the fleet and army made their way through the 
 woods, guided by the Penobscot Indians, who were 
 friendly to the provinces through the war for in- 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 61 
 
 dependence. These straggling parties suffered 
 every privation before reaching the settlements, 
 subsisting on such game and fish as they were able 
 to obtain. A large number were piloted by the 
 Indians to Fort Halifax, where they were recruited, 
 and returned home by the Kennebec. 
 
 A court of inquiry as to the cause of the failure 
 of the expedition gave as their opinion " That the 
 principal reason of the failure of the expedition 
 was the want of the proper spirit on the part of 
 the Commodore. That the destruction of the fleet 
 was occasioned essentially because of his not ex 
 erting himself at all in the time of the retreat, by 
 opposing the enemy s foremost ships in pursuit." 
 " That General Lovell, throughout the expedition 
 and retreat, acted with proper courage and spirit ; 
 and had he been furnished with all the men or 
 dered for the service, or been properly supported 
 by the Commodore, he would probably have re 
 duced the enemy." The court spoke in the 
 highest terms of General Wadsworth. Upon this 
 report the General Court adjudged "That Commo 
 dore Saltonstall be incompetent ever after to hold 
 a commission in the service of the State, and that 
 Generals Lovell and Wadsworth be honorably ac 
 quitted." 
 
 In answer to General Lovell s appeal for assist 
 ance by the whale-boat express to Boston, a regi- 
 
62 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 ment under Colonel Henry Jackson proceeded to 
 Falmouth on their way to the Penobscot, where 
 they heard of the disaster of the expedition. 
 
 When I was a boy, sixty years ago, many of the 
 men of Cumberland County who had been in the 
 Bagaduce expedition were then living; some of 
 them were my own relatives. I have often heard 
 angry discussions between those of the land and 
 those of the naval service. The landsmen always 
 assumed the aggressive, and had the best of the 
 argument. It was the opinion of both that if 
 General Wadsworth had been in chief command 
 on shore the gallant detachments which first 
 gained the heights could not have been restrained 
 until they had crossed bayonets with the garrison 
 of the half -built fortress ; and that was the time 
 to have carried the works. 
 
 After the failure of the Bagaduce expedition the 
 British pursued a system of outrageous plundering 
 on the shores of Penobscot Bay and the neighbor 
 ing coast, in which they were piloted and assisted 
 by the numerous Tories who had gathered at Bag 
 aduce and in the vicinity. To protect the people 
 from this plundering, the Continental Congress, 
 in 1780, ordered 600 men to be detached from the 
 three eastern brigades of the State, for eight 
 months service. Every soldier was ordered to 
 march well equipped, within twenty-four hours 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 63 
 
 after lie was detached, or pay a fine of sixty 
 pounds currency, which was to be applied to pro 
 cure a substitute. The command of the whole 
 eastern department, between the Piscataqua and 
 St. Croix, was given to General Wadsworth, with 
 power to raise more troops if they were needed. 
 He was also empowered to declare and execute 
 martial law over territory ten miles in width 
 upon the coast east of the Kennebec, according 
 to the rules of the American army. His head 
 quarters were established at Thomaston. For the 
 purpose of protecting his friends, the General 
 found it necessary to draw a line of demarkation 
 between them and their foes. He issued a proc 
 lamation prohibiting any intercourse with the 
 enemy. This paper, of which I have a copy, is 
 dated at Thomaston, 18th of April, 1780, and de 
 clares the penalty of military execution for any 
 infringement of it. The people of the islands east 
 of Penobscot to Union River, " from their exposed 
 situation," were ordered to hold themselves as 
 neutrals. All persons joining the enemy were to 
 be treated as deserters from the American army. 
 
 This proclamation did not have the desired 
 effect. The most bitter of the Tories supposed 
 that they would be protected by General Campbell, 
 who was now in command; but he disapproved of 
 their plundering. Captain Mowatt, of detestable 
 
64 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 memory, who was in command of the British 
 squadron, was of a different character, and encour 
 aged their depredations, when they became very 
 aggressive. A stanch friend of the American 
 cause at Broad Bay, named Soule, was shot in his 
 bed, and his wife was wounded. This drew from 
 General Wadsworth another proclamation, de 
 nouncing death to any one convicted of secreting 
 or giving aid to the enemy. Soon after a man 
 named Baum was detected in secreting and aiding 
 Tories to reach Castine. He was tried by court- 
 martial, found guilty of treason, and General 
 Wadsworth ordered his execution by hanging the 
 next morning, which was carried into effect. 
 This effectually checked the intercourse with Bag- 
 aduce. A daughter of General Wadsworth, in 
 writing of the circumstance to a son-in-law in 
 1834, said, " My mother has told me that my 
 father was greatly distressed at being obliged to 
 execute the penalty of the law." General Wads- 
 worth s wife was with him at the time. 
 
 After the term of service of the 600 troops had 
 expired, General Wadsworth was left with only 
 six soldiers as a guard at his house, it being his 
 intention also to leave within a week or two. 
 His family consisted of his wife and son of five 
 years, and Miss Fenno, of Boston, a particular 
 friend of Mrs. Wadsworth. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 65 
 
 Made acquainted with his defenseless condition 
 by spies, General Campbell, at Bagaduce, dis 
 patched a party of twenty-five men under Lieu 
 tenant Stockton to take him prisoner. They left 
 their vessel four miles off, and marched to his resi 
 dence, arriving at about midnight, February 18, 
 1781. The General had plenty of fire-arms in his 
 sleeping-room, and when his house was entered 
 by the enemy he made a determined defense, un 
 til he was shot in the arm, when he surrendered, 
 and w r as hurried off to the vessel. When he be 
 came weak from the loss of blood, he was set on a 
 horse for the march. He suffered much from cold 
 and pain from his wound. He was taken across 
 the bay to Castine, and imprisoned in Fort George 
 for two weeks. He knew nothing of the fate of 
 the members of his family who had been exposed 
 to the firing. At the request of General Wads- 
 worth, General Campbell sent a lieutenant with a 
 boat s crew to Camden across the bay, with letters 
 to his family and to the Governor of the State, 
 which were inspected previous to sealing. Fi 
 nally, a letter was received from Mrs. Wadsworth, 
 containing an assurance that they were unharmed. 
 General Campbell treated his prisoner very po 
 litely, inviting him to eat at his own table, under 
 guard of an orderly sergeant, but refused him a 
 parole or exchange. In the spring, four months 
 
 5 
 
66 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 after his seizure, Mrs. Wadsworth and Miss Fenno, 
 with a passport from General Campbell, arrived at 
 Bagaduce, and were politely entertained at the 
 fort for ten days. In the mean time orders had 
 arrived from the commanding general at New 
 York, in answer to a communication from Gen 
 eral Campbell. Their purport was learned from a 
 hint conveyed to Miss Fenno by an officer, that 
 the General was not to be exchanged, but would 
 be sent to some English prison. When Miss 
 Fenno left she gave the General all the informa 
 tion she dared to ; she said, " General Wadsworth, 
 take care of yourself." This the General inter 
 preted to mean that he was to be conveyed to 
 England, and he determined to make his escape 
 from the fortress, if possible. Soon after a vessel 
 arrived from Boston with a flag of truce from the 
 Governor and Council, asking for an exchange for 
 the General and bringing a sum of money for his 
 use ; but the request was refused. 
 
 Major Burton, a resident of St. George s Kiver, 
 who had served the previous summer under Gen 
 eral Wadsworth, was a prisoner in the same room 
 with him. After a long preparation, and by ob 
 taining a gimlet from the fort barber, they made 
 their escape on the night of the 18th of June, 
 passing through an opening previously and labori 
 ously made in the board ceiling with the gimlet, 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 67 
 
 the marks of which were filled with bread. They 
 adroitly evaded the sentinels, but were separated 
 in the darkness, both, however, getting off safely. 
 They kept much in the shoal water of the shores, 
 to prevent being tracked by the blood-hounds 
 which were kept at the fort for that purpose. 
 The two friends came accidentally together on the 
 next day. Major Burton dropped a glove in the 
 darkness, which pointed out to their pursuers the 
 route they had taken on leaving the fort. They, 
 however, found a canoe, got across the river, and 
 pursued their course through the woods by a 
 pocket compass to the settlements, and w r ere as 
 sisted to Thomaston, after much suffering. On 
 arriving at his former residence, General Wads- 
 worth found that his family had left for Boston, 
 whither he followed them, after a brief stop at 
 Falmouth, where he finally fixed his residence. 
 
 In 1797 President Dwight, of Yale College, 
 who had been a chaplain in the American army, 
 visited Portland, and was the guest of General 
 Wadsworth, from whom he says he " received an 
 uninterrupted succession of civilities." He also 
 received from the General, and wrote out, a mi 
 nute and thrilling account of his capture, impris 
 onment, and escape, which cover twenty-five 
 printed pages. General Wadsworth, at the time 
 of its publication, vouched for its accuracy. 
 
68 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 The record of the births of his eleven children 
 shows the places where the General lived at the 
 time. The oldest was born at Kingston, Mass., in 
 1774, and died the next year at Dorchester. 
 Charles Lee was born at Plymouth, January, 1776, 
 and died at Hiram, September 29, 1848. Zilpah 
 was born at Duxbury, January 6, 1778, died in 
 Portland, March 12, 1851. Elizabeth, born in 
 Boston, September 21, 1779, died in Portland, 
 August 1, 1802. John, born at Plymouth, Sep 
 tember 1, 1781, graduated at Harvard College in 
 1800, died at Hiram, January 22, 1860. Lucia, 
 born at Plymouth, June 12, 1783, died in Port 
 land, October 17, 1864. Henry, born at Fal- 
 mouth, Me., June 21, 1785, died at Tripoli, 
 September 4, 1804. George, born in Portland, 
 January 6, 1788, died in Philadelphia, April 8, 
 1816. Alexander Scammell, born in Portland, 
 May 7, 1790, died at Washington, April 5, 1851. 
 Samuel Bartlett, born in Portland, September 1, 
 1791, died at Eastport, October 2, 1874. Peleg, 
 born in Portland, October 10, 1793, died at Hiram, 
 January 17, 1875. 
 
 The following letter, with a copy of the State 
 deed of the tract of land in Hiram, was received 
 at the last moment previous to the meeting, too 
 late to correct dates or facts : 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 69 
 
 [Copy of a letter written by General Peleg Wadswortk to Alden 
 Bradford, Esq.] 
 
 HIRAM, 17th July, 1827. 
 
 DEAR SIR: Observing your advertisement in the 
 Columbian Sentinel of the llth inst, requesting surviv 
 ing officers of the Revolutionary Army of the State of 
 Mass, and of Me. to forward to you their rank in 1780, 
 &c, in compliance, I have sketched the following 
 though I do not know whether I come within your 
 request, as I was not of the line of the Continental 
 Army after the first two years of the War. I was a 
 Captain in Cotton s and Bailey s Regiments, the two 
 first years, and was Aid De Camp to Gen l Ward as 
 long as he continued in the service, which I believe 
 was till the year 1777, with the rank of major. 
 
 Afterwards, I was in the Continental service (as it 
 was called) under the appointment of the Legislature of 
 Mass. was second in command with Gen. Lovell on 
 the in-glorious Penobscot Expedition in 1778, with the 
 rank of Brigadier Gen l ; the next year, viz., 1779, had 
 the command of the whole coast of the District of Maine, 
 by the same authority, at the close of which, or rather 
 the beginning of 1780, 1 was taken prisoner (as you may 
 see by looking at 210th page of Rev. Charles A. Good- 
 rich s History of United States). After that I was not 
 in the military service. I was 82 years old when ap 
 pointed a Brigadier Gen l (by the Gov. and Council) 
 and lived in Boston at that time, moved to Portland in 
 1784, and to Hiram in 1810, where I now reside, and am 
 in my 80th year. 
 
 I know of no widows of the description you mention, 
 
70 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 nor do I know for what purpose you have requested the 
 above, but as the motive is, no doubt, benevolent, I 
 cheerfully subscribe myself your friend and serv t, 
 
 PELEG WADSWORTH. 
 ALDEN BRADFORD, ESQ. 
 
 The birth of a son there in September, 1781, 
 shows that General Wadsworth took his family to 
 Plymouth on leaving his command in Maine. A 
 daughter was also born there, in 1783. It is 
 known that he came to Falmouth in 1784. In 
 December of that year he purchased of John 
 Ingersoll, of Boston, shipwright, for 100 pounds 
 lawful money, the lot of land in Falmouth on 
 which he erected his buildings for a home. In 
 the deed he is named of that town. The purchase 
 is described as " lying northeast of a lot now pos 
 sessed by Captain Arthur McLellan, being four 
 rods in front and running towards Back Cove and 
 containing one and one half acres. Being part of 
 three acres originally granted to Daniel Ingersoll 
 as appears on the records of the town of Falmouth, 
 Book No. 1, page 46." This is the Congress Street 
 lot on which he erected his house and store. 
 
 Dr. Deane, in his diary, says his store and barn 
 were built in 1784. While he was building his 
 house, he, with his family, lived in a building at 
 the south corner of Franklin and Congress streets, 
 belonging to Captain Jonathan Paine. It was built 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 71 
 
 for a barn, but probably had been occupied before 
 as a dwelling, as it escaped Mowatt s burning, ten 
 years before, which compelled well-to-do people to 
 occupy very humble quarters. This building was 
 long afterwards finished for a dwelling-house by 
 Elijah Adams, and burned in 1866. In the spring 
 of 1785 General Wadsworth made preparation to 
 erect his house. There had then been no attempt 
 in the town to construct all the walls of a building 
 of brick ; indeed, there had been no suitable brick 
 for walls made here. At that time brick buildings 
 were expected to have a projecting base of several 
 courses, the top one to be of brick fashioned 
 for the purpose, the outer end of which formed a 
 regular moulding when laid on edge and endwise, 
 and the walls receded several inches to the per 
 pendicular face. Several houses besides General 
 "Wadsworth s were commenced in this way. In 
 the spring of 1785 the General obtained brick for 
 his house in Philadelphia, including those for the 
 base and a belt above the first story. John Nich 
 ols was the master mason. 
 
 Although the house was to be only two stories, 
 the walls were built sixteen inches thick, strong 
 enough for a church tower. This swallowed up 
 the bricks more rapidly than had been expected. 
 At the close of the season they were all laid, and 
 the walls were not completed. There was no 
 
72 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 alternative but to secure the masonry from the 
 weather, and wait for another spring. When that 
 came more bricks were imported, and " the house 
 that Jack [Nichols] built" was finished. It is yet 
 standing, and shows good work in the artistic win 
 dow-caps of brick. There was no other brick 
 house built in town until three years after. The 
 Wadsworth House, when originally finished, had 
 a high pitched roof of two equal sides, and four 
 chimneys. The store adjoined the house at the 
 southeast, with an entrance door from the house, 
 and was of two stories. Here the General sold all 
 kinds of goods needed in the town and country 
 trade. His name appears in the records with 
 some forty others as licensed " retailers " of the 
 town in 1785. What time he gave up the store 
 is uncertain. The late Edward Howe, who occu 
 pied it in 1805, described it to me. 
 
 General Wadsworth was elected to the Massachu 
 setts Senate in 1792, and the same year he was 
 elected Representative to Congress, being the first 
 from the Cumberland district, and was continuously 
 elected to that office until 1806, when he declined 
 a reelection. In 1798 the citizens of Portland 
 gave him a public dinner in approbation of his 
 official conduct. Captain William Merrill related to 
 me the circumstance that when the seat of govern 
 ment was removed from Philadelphia to Washing- 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 73 
 
 ton, in 1801, General Wadsworth took passage in 
 his vessel for Baltimore, that being the most speedy 
 and comfortable way to reach Washington. 
 
 In 1790 General Wadsworth purchased from 
 the State of Massachusetts 7,500 acres of wild land, 
 in the township which is now Hiram, on the Saco 
 Eiver. The price paid was twelve and a half cents 
 per acre. He immediately commenced to clear a 
 farm on a large scale, as is shown by a paragraph 
 in the "Eastern Herald" of September 10, 1792, 
 published in Portland. It says, " General Wads- 
 worth thinks he has raised more than 1,000 bushels 
 of corn this season on burnt land, that is now out 
 of danger of the frost, at a place called Great Ossi- 
 pee, about thirty-six miles from this town. This 
 is but the third year of his improvements." In 
 1790 the township contained a population of 186. 
 
 In 1795 General Wadsworth settled his son 
 Charles Lee on his tract, and in 1800 he began 
 to prepare to remove his own family there. In 
 that year he commenced to build on his land- 
 purchase a large house, which is yet standing, one 
 mile from Hiram village. The clay for the bricks 
 of the chimneys was brought down Saco River 
 three miles in a boat. This house was of two 
 stories, with a railed outlook on the ridge between 
 the two chimneys. There was a very large one- 
 story kitchen adjoining, with an immense chimney 
 and fire-place. Years after its building, the Gen- 
 
74 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 eral s youngest son, Peleg, said that at the time of 
 the erection of the house he was seven years old, 
 and was left by his father to watch the fires in 
 the eleven fire-places, which were kindled to dry 
 the new masonry, while he rode to the post road 
 for his mail, and that he had not felt such a weight 
 of responsibility since. 
 
 The General took his family and household 
 goods to his new home in the first of the winter, 
 and commenced housekeeping in the new house 
 January 1, 1807. He, with his son Charles Lee, 
 engaged in lumbering and farming. General 
 Wadsworth was a skillful land surveyor and 
 draughtsman, and was much employed in the new 
 township. He was chosen selectman in 1812, and 
 reflected annually until 1818, and was twelve 
 years town treasurer. He was a magistrate, and 
 was looked upon as the patriarch of the town. 
 He was a patron of education, and his home was 
 the central point of the region for hospitality and 
 culture. He was long a communicant of the Con 
 gregational church, and so continued until his 
 death in 1829, at the age of eighty-one. Mrs. 
 Wadsworth died in 1825. Their graves are in a 
 private inclosure on the home farm. The original 
 modest head-stones have give place to a more con 
 spicuous monument of marble. The son Peleg, 
 who was thirteen years old when the family moved 
 to Hiram, spent the remainder of his life in that 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 75 
 
 town, and died in 1875, at the age of eighty-one. 
 It is a remarkable fact that General Wadsworth 
 and his sons Charles Lee and Peleg, who lived and 
 died at Hiram, each reared eleven children. For 
 the facts relating to General Wadsworth s life at 
 Hiram I am indebted to his great-grandson, L. W. 
 Wadsworth, who has in preparation a history of 
 that town. 
 
 In writing to her daughter, Mrs. Longfellow 
 described the appearance of her father, General 
 Wadsworth, in the following postscript : 
 
 Perhaps you would like to see my father s picture as 
 it was when we came to this town after the war of the 
 Revolution, in 1784. Imagine to yourself a man of mid 
 dle size, well proportioned, with a military air, arid who 
 carried himself so truly that many thought him tall. His 
 dress, a bright scarlet coat, buff small clothes and vest, 
 full ruffled bosom, ruffles over the hands, white stockings, 
 shoes with silver buckles, white cravat bow in front ; hair 
 well powdered and tied behind in a club, so called. . . . 
 Of his character others may speak, but I cannot forbear 
 to claim for him an uncommon share of benevolence and 
 kind feeling. Z. W. L. 
 
 January, 1848. 
 
 Two of the sons of General Wadsworth were 
 officers in the United States navy. Henry became 
 a lieutenant at the age of nineteen, and was at 
 tached to the schooner Scourge in Commodore 
 Treble s squadron, before Tripoli, in 1804. The 
 last entry in his journal before the attack in which 
 
76 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 he lost his life was this : " We are in daily ex 
 pectation of the Commodore s arrival from Syra 
 cuse with the gun-boats and bomb vessels, and 
 then, Tripoli, be on thy guard." The story of his 
 sad death is told in the inscription on a marble 
 cenotaph, erected by his father to his memory, in 
 the eastern cemetery in Portland, near the graves 
 of the captains of the Enterprise and Boxer : 
 
 IS. E.face. ] 
 
 Determined at once they 
 prefer death and the destruc 
 tion of 
 
 the Enemy 
 
 to captivity and torturing 
 Slavery. 
 Com. treble s 
 
 letter. 
 
 [& W.face.-] 
 
 In memory of 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH, 
 
 son of 
 
 PELEG WADSWORTH, 
 Lieut. U. S. Navy, 
 
 who fell 
 
 Before the walls of Tripoli on 
 the eve of 4th Sept., 
 
 1804, 
 
 in the 20th year of his age, by 
 the explosion of a 
 
 fire ship, 
 
 which he with others gallantly 
 conducted against the Enemy. 
 
 [N. E. face. ] 
 My country calls, 
 
 This world adieu ; 
 I have one life, 
 
 That life I give for you. 
 
 Capt. Richard Somers. 
 Lieut. Henry Wadsworth. 
 
 [N. W.face. ] 
 " An honor to his 
 
 Country 
 
 and an example to all 
 excellent 
 youth." 
 Resolve of Congress. 
 
 Lieut. Joseph Israel. 
 
 and 10 brave seamen 
 
 volunteers 
 were the devoted band. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 77 
 
 It is from this gallant officer, his uncle, that the 
 poet Longfellow received his name. 
 
 The General s ninth child was Alexander Scam- 
 mell Wads worth, born in Portland in 1790. When 
 the Constitution frigate fought her memorable 
 battle, in August, 1812, in which she captured the 
 British frigate Guerriere after her three masts 
 had been shot away by the Americans, Alexander 
 Wadsworth was second lieutenant of the victorious 
 ship. The first lieutenant, Morris, was severely 
 wounded early in the action, when Lieutenant 
 Wadsworth of course took his place, then only 
 twenty -four. So well did he acquit himself that 
 his fellow townsmen of Portland presented him 
 with a sword for his gallantry. Lieutenant Wads- 
 worth was an officer on board the ship which con 
 veyed our minister, Joel Barlow, to France in 
 1811, and was presented with a sword by that 
 gentleman. The lieutenant rose to the rank of 
 commodore, and died in Washington in 1851, 
 aged sixty-one. 
 
 Another of the children of General Wadsworth, 
 Zilpah, performed her part in life as bravely, and 
 died as much beloved and honored, as did her gal 
 lant brothers of the navy. She was born at Dux- 
 bury, January 6, 1778, while her father was in 
 the army. When the family first occupied the 
 brick house in Portland she was eight years old, 
 
78 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 and recollected the inconveniences and discomforts 
 of the unfinished quarters in which they lived 
 while the house was building. 
 
 In 1799, June 25, Zilpah Wads worth, in behalf 
 of the ladies of Portland, presented a military 
 standard to a volunteer company called the Fed 
 eral Volunteers. It was the first uniformed com 
 pany in Maine. Joseph C. Boyd was captain, and 
 the ensign, who received the standard and replied 
 to the presentation address, was named Wiggin. 
 In after years, Mrs. Longfellow described to her 
 daughters the rehearsal of her speech and the 
 waving of the banner on the back steps of her 
 father s house to her sister, who personated En 
 sign Wiggin. The presentation was from the front 
 portico of that historic mansion. The street has 
 been filled up since then, hiding the stone steps. 
 The motto on the flag was " Defend the laws." 
 On one side was painted the arms of the United 
 States, and on the other the same, united with the 
 arms of Massachusetts. 
 
 In 1804 Zilpah Wadsworth became the wife of 
 Stephen Longfellow, and first kept house in a two- 
 story wooden building yet standing on the south 
 corner of Congress and Temple streets. When 
 her father s family left the brick house for a new 
 home in the country in 1807, she, with a family of 
 a husband and two sons, took the old homestead. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 79 
 
 Mr. Longfellow moved the store, and in its place 
 built the brick vestibule at the east corner, over 
 which he placed a modest sign, which was there 
 within my recollection ; it read " Stephen Long 
 fellow, Counsellor at Law." He occupied the east 
 ern front room for his law office, opening from the 
 brick entry. In this office several young students, 
 who became prominent lawyers of Cumberland 
 County, read " Coke and Blackstone." 
 
 One day in 1814 or 1815, while Mrs. Longfellow 
 was indisposed and the family physician was in 
 attendance, the servant overheated the kitchen 
 flue, which took fire and communicated the flames 
 to the attic. The family knew nothing of the fire 
 until it broke out through the roof. Mr. Longfel 
 low was the chief fire-ward of the department, but 
 his first thought was of his sick wife, whom he 
 hastily inquired for of Dr. Weed. He told Mr. 
 Longfellow to look to the fire, and he would take 
 care of his wife. When it became evident that 
 the house must be flooded, the doctor, who was a 
 tall, muscular man, wrapped Mrs. Longfellow in a 
 blanket, and carried her in his arms into Madam 
 Treble s, the next door, now the hotel. A lady of 
 the family, who was then a child, described the 
 scene to me. Her first realization of the danger 
 was from seeing her father standing on a post of 
 the front fence, with a brass trumpet to his mouth, 
 
80 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 giving loud orders to the gathering firemen, and 
 gesticulating violently. After it had nearly de 
 stroyed the roof, the fire was extinguished. 
 
 To increase the accommodations for his large 
 family, Mr. Longfellow added to the house a third 
 story, and a low four-sided or " hipped " roof took 
 the place of the high two-sided one, with the 
 chimneys the same. And thus repaired, the ven 
 erable structure, around which so much of histor 
 ical interest clusters, has remained to the present 
 time. Although overshadowed and crowded upon 
 by its more pretentious neighbors, it is more in 
 quired for now by strangers than any other house 
 in the city. May the polite and refined descend 
 ant of its builder, who is now its mistress, long con 
 tinue to preside there and dispense its traditional 
 hospitalities. 
 
,- 
 
THE PORTLAND OP LONGFELLOW S 
 YOUTH. 
 
 BY EDWARD H. ELWELL, PORTLAND. 
 
 THE year 1807, made illustrious in the history 
 of Portland by the birth of Henry W. Longfellow, 
 was also, in other respects, a year of marked 
 events. It witnessed the beginnings of many 
 things whose influence still remains with us. In 
 1807 another poet, who became distinguished for 
 his sprightly and graceful style, the late Nathaniel 
 P. Willis, was born in Portland. In 1807 the Kev. 
 Edward Payson began here, as the colleague of 
 Eev. Elijah Kellogg, his wonderful pastorate of 
 twenty years. In 1807 the third parish meeting 
 house, in which the late Eev. Dr. Dwight so long 
 officiated, was built. In 1807 the increasing de 
 mands of commerce caused the erection of the 
 Observatory on Munjoy s Hill. In 1807 the com 
 merce of this port, which had gone on increasing 
 with giant strides for a period of more than ten 
 years, had reached a high state of prosperity ; and 
 in 1807 the embargo fell upon and crushed it with 
 one fell stroke, spreading ruin and disaster throuo-h- 
 
82 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 out the community. It was the culmination of a 
 period of great prosperity, and the beginning of a 
 season of adversity ending in the calamities of war. 
 The little fishing village on the Neck, ravaged 
 by the Indians in 1676, destroyed by the French 
 and Indians in 1690, bombarded and burned by 
 the British in 1775, after the close of the Revolu 
 tion again sprang into existence, and, profiting by 
 the Napoleonic wars in Europe, in common with 
 the whole country, entered upon a career of un 
 exampled commercial prosperity. American bot 
 toms, as being declared neutrals, were the only 
 safe carriers, and largely monopolized the com 
 merce of the world. Our merchants, no longer 
 content with a coasting trade, engaged in foreign 
 commerce, and did a large importing business. 
 The tonnage of the port largely increased. Wealth 
 flowed in, and with it came greater refinement and 
 a more lavish style of living. The humble habita 
 tions of the earlier period, which in 1799 the Duke 
 de la Rochefoucauld had described as " a parcel of 
 mean houses," began to give place to large and 
 elegant mansions, some of which still remain to 
 testify to the architectural taste as well as the 
 prosperity of the period. The first brick store, 
 built in 1792, was followed in 1799 by the erec 
 tion of Mussey s Row, on Middle Street, and in 
 1801 by Jones Row, on Exchange Street, built 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 83 
 
 by the Rev. Elijah Kellogg ; for the commercial 
 spirit of the time had seized upon the ministers of 
 the gospel. The town was full of enterprise. 
 New wharves were thrown out into the harbor, 
 banks were established, and a desirable class of 
 residents came in, bringing capital with them. The 
 little village, which for ten years after its destruc 
 tion by Mowatt had lain desolate, now began to 
 take on a solid and substantial air. In 1798 the 
 Duke de la Rochefoucauld wrote of Portland as 
 " so remote and so rarely visited by travelers," 
 but in 1807 Dr. D wight, traveling hither, could 
 write : " No place in our route, hitherto, could for 
 its improvement be compared with Portland. We 
 found the buildings extended quite to the Cove, 
 doubled in their number, and still more increased 
 in their appearance. Few towns in New England 
 are equally beautiful and brilliant. Its wealth and 
 business are probably quadrupled." 
 
 All this prosperity was suddenly checked by the 
 non-intercourse policy of 1806, and the embargo 
 which followed in 1807. Commerce was at once 
 suspended, and the almost total destruction of our 
 shipping followed. Navigation fell off nine thou 
 sand tons in two years ; all the various classes to 
 whom it gave support were thrown out of employ 
 ment ; eleven commercial houses stopped payment 
 in the latter part of 1807, and many others the 
 
84 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 following year. Great distress fell upon the peo 
 ple, a reverse made more gloomy by contrast with 
 the preceding prosperity. 
 
 Then came the war of 1812, bringing some 
 activity in the way of privateering, and the 
 movement of troops for the defense of the town. 
 Fortifications were thrown up on Munjoy, and 
 garrisons were established in them. Here begin 
 the recollections of our poet, then a boy of six 
 or seven years, as recorded in his poem of " My 
 Lost Youth." 
 
 " I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 
 
 And the fort upon the hill ; 
 The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar, 
 The drum-beat repeated o er and o er, 
 And the bugle wild and shrill. 
 And the music of that old song 
 Throbs in my memory still : 
 A boy s will is the wind s will, 
 And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. " 
 
 On the 4th of September, 1813, the British brig- 
 of-war Boxer, Captain S. Blyth, was captured in 
 a hard-fought action off our coast by the United 
 States brig Enterprise, Lieutenant W. Burrows, 
 and was brought into this port on the morning of 
 the 7th ; and the next day the remains of both 
 commanders, who were killed in the action, were 
 buried in the cemetery at the foot of Munjoy s 
 Hill. This was an event well calculated to im- 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 85 
 
 press itself upon the memory of a boy, and our 
 poet again sings, 
 
 " I remember the sea-fight far away, 
 
 How it thundered o er the tide ! 
 And the dead captains, as they lay 
 In their graves, o erlooking the tranquil bay, 
 
 Where they in battle died." 
 
 The town did not wholly recover from the 
 severe blow of the embargo until after the peace 
 of 1815. Then began a period of slow recupera 
 tion, during which its population made little in 
 crease. In 1800 the number of inhabitants was 
 3,704 ; by 1810 they had increased to 7,169, but 
 at the close of the next decade, in 1820, they were 
 but 8,581. It is this little town of seven or eight 
 thousand inhabitants that we have now to picture 
 to ourselves as the scene of Longfellow s boy 
 hood : 
 
 " The beautiful town 
 That is seated by the sea." 
 
 It lay on the narrow peninsula, or "Neck," in 
 the depression between the two hills which mark 
 its extremities,Munjoy and Bramhall. It had been 
 first settled nearly two centuries before, on the 
 sea-shore at its eastern end, and in all this long 
 period of time it had advanced scarcely half-way 
 towards the western end. The early settlers clus 
 tered around the fort, which stood at the foot of 
 
86 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 what is now India Street, and the shore road ex 
 tending eastward from India Street, forming now 
 the easternmost part of Fore Street, was long the 
 court end of the town. Here Major Samuel 
 Moody, coming hither in 1716, built his house, 
 and here in process of time sprang up a number 
 of large square mansions, some with gambrel 
 roofs, several of which yet remain. In one of 
 these, standing, on the one hand, within a stone s- 
 throw of the spot where the first settler landed 
 and built his cabin, in 1632, and on the other not 
 much farther from the site of old Fort Loyal, our 
 poet was born seventy-five years ago to-day. He 
 was thus cradled on historic ground, and sprang 
 from amidst the earliest scenes of civilization on 
 this peninsula. It was a pleasant site ; not then, 
 as now, hemmed in by new-made land encroaching 
 on the sea. It looked out on the waters of oar 
 beautiful bay, commanding a view of those 
 
 " Islands that were the Hesperides 
 Of all ray boyish dreams." 
 
 Immediately opposite, skirting the road on the 
 seaward side, lay the beach, the scene of many a 
 baptism on a Sabbath day. It was not here, how 
 ever, that our poet spent his boyhood. His par 
 ents moved on with the progress of the town, and 
 we shall find him at a later period established 
 in what is at present the heart of the city. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 87 
 
 Let us now take a comprehensive view of the 
 town as it existed in the decade between 1810 and 
 1820. As w r e have said, it nestled in the hollow 
 between the two hills. On the south lay the har 
 bor, with its wharves and its shipping ; on the 
 north the quiet waters of Back Cove, its shores 
 nearly vacant, and its waters as yet undisturbed 
 by commerce. 
 
 On Munjoy s Hill there were but three houses, 
 save those in old Fort Surnner. It was a pasture 
 ground for cows in part, and in part was given up 
 to a dense growth of alder bushes. On Indian 
 Point, where the Grand Trunk bridge leaves the 
 hill, stood seven or eight lofty ancient pine- 
 trees, and in the high branches the fish hawks 
 were w r ont to build their nests. The boys went 
 a-gunning " back of the Neck," and shot plovers 
 and curlews and sand-birds, which visited the 
 shore in great numbers. At Fish Point, on the 
 harbor side of the hill, the ledgy cliff, now blasted 
 away to make room for the track of the Grand 
 Trunk Railway, was cut deep with the names of 
 boys who spent many a long summer afternoon in 
 wandering around the solitary shore. The cliff 
 terminated in a cove called " Abigail s Hole," 
 after an aged Indian squaw who resided there, 
 the last of the race that lived and died in Port 
 land. 
 
88 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 On the slope of the hill towards the town stood 
 a tall signal spar, with a tar-barrel suspended from 
 its summit, which was to be set on fire should the 
 enemy approach the town, or assistance be needed 
 from the country. Washington Street, overlook 
 ing the Cove, commanding a view of the fine 
 scenery beyond, and with its long alternating lines 
 of Lombardy poplars and balm of gileads, was 
 thought to be the prettiest street in town. Stand 
 ing on the western slope of the hill, one com 
 manded the town below at a single glance. All 
 north of Cumberland Street was vacant land, 
 known as the " Back Fields." Nearly all west of 
 High Street was sunburnt pasture, where swamp 
 alternated with huckleberry bushes. State Street 
 had been laid out through the waste, and here and 
 there along its line a stately mansion rose, with 
 the huckleberry and bayberry bushes growing 
 close up to its fences. Bramhall s Hill was a far 
 away wilderness. At the quiet hour of sunset one 
 standing where the jail now stands, below Munjoy, 
 could hear the sound of Caleb Young s fife on 
 Bramhall s Hill, two miles away, no building to 
 obstruct sight or sound intervening. 
 
 With the revival of commerce, after the war, 
 trade with the West India islands sprang up, and 
 low-decked brigs carried out cargoes of lumber 
 and dried fish, bringing back sugar, rum, and mo- 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 89 
 
 lasses. This trade made lively scenes on Long 
 Wharf and Portland Pier. From lack of sys 
 tem and the appliances of steam, everything was 
 then done with great noise and bustle and by 
 main strength. The discharging of a cargo of 
 molasses set the town in an uproar. The wharves 
 resounded with the songs of the negro stevedores, 
 hoisting the hogsheads from the hold without the 
 aid of a winch the long trucks, with heavy loads, 
 were tugged by straining horses, under the whips 
 and loud cries of the truckmen. Liquor was lav 
 ishly supplied to laboring men, and it made them 
 turbulent and uproarious. Adding to the busy 
 tumult were the teams coming into town by the 
 two principal avenues, over Deering s bridge and 
 up Green Street, or over Bramhall s Hill by way 
 of Horse Tavern, bringing charcoal from Water- 
 borough, shocks from Fryeburg, Hiram, and Bald 
 win, hoop-poles, heading, cord-wood, and screwed 
 hay ; and the Yermonters, in their blue woolen 
 frocks, bringing in their red pungs round hogs, 
 butter, and cheese. Rev. Elijah Kellogg, Jr., 
 gives a lively picture of Portland at this time, on 
 a winter morning, 
 
 " Then you might have seen lively times : a string of 
 board teams from George Libby s to Portland Pier; 
 sleds growling ; surveyors running about like madmen, 
 a shino-le in one hand and a rule-staff in the other; cattle 
 
90 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 white with frost and their nostrils hung with icicles ; 
 teamsters screaming and hallooing ; Herrick s Tavern 
 and all the shops in Huckler s Row, lighted up, and the 
 loggerheads hot to give customers their morning dram." 
 
 It is with such scenes as these rising in his 
 memory that Longfellow sings, 
 
 " I remember the black wharves and the slips, 
 
 And the sea-tides tossing free ; 
 And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
 And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
 
 And the magic of the sea." 
 
 Portland was a lumber port, driving a brisk 
 little trade with more tumult and hurrah than 
 now accompanies the transaction of ten times the 
 amount of business then done. In addition to its 
 lumber trade, it had its distilleries, its tanneries, 
 its rope-walks, and its pottery, the latter two of 
 which so impressed themselves upon the memory 
 of the boy Longfellow that in after years they 
 suggested his poems " The Ropewalk " and 
 " Keramos," the song of the potter. Men now 
 living, going back in memory to those bustling 
 days, w T ill tell you those were the times when 
 trade was lively, and think it but a dull town 
 now, though with five times the population and 
 many times the amount of business. 
 
 But let us push on into the heart of the " dear 
 old town." Passing up Middle Street, where 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 91 
 
 blocks of brick stores have already begun to take 
 the place of dwelling-houses which once lined it, 
 we enter Market Square. It wears an aspect 
 quite different from that which it now presents. 
 It is surrounded by small wooden shops, for the 
 most part of one story. On the left, as we enter, 
 stands the two story wooden house known as 
 Marston s Tavern, to which Mowatt was taken as 
 a prisoner by Colonel Thompson and his men, in 
 June, 1775. Mowatt did not succeed in burning 
 it when, a few months later, he bombarded the 
 town in revenge for this act of Thompson s, but 
 when it was removed in 1833 one of his shot was 
 found imbedded in the chimney. In the centre of 
 the square, near where now is the eastern end of 
 old City Hall, stands the hay scales, and next to 
 that the market house, a wooden building ; and be 
 yond these a row of small wooden shops, termi 
 nating in a " heater," nearly opposite the head of 
 Preble Street. In one of these shops we shall find 
 Nathaniel Shaw, the saddler, accumulating about 
 his door that stratum of leather scraps which, 
 when an excavation is made there many years 
 after, is viewed with wonder as an antediluvian 
 relic. In the " heater " is the shop of " I. Gray," 
 the barber, and around the square may be seen 
 the familiar names of David Trull, William Rad- 
 ford, the cabinet-maker, and E. Horton, the gin- 
 
92 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 gerbread man, who dispensed his commodity from 
 a wheelbarrow. 
 
 At the corner of Preble Street, with its garden 
 stretching far down that street, stands the brick 
 mansion occupied by the widow of Commodore 
 Edward Preble, the hero of Tripoli, dead since 
 1807. Next to this, " somewhat back from the 
 village street," is the brick residence built by the 
 poet s maternal grandfather, General Peleg Wads- 
 worth, and occupied by his father, Stephen Long 
 fellow, Esq. This is the home of the poet s 
 boyhood, and in fancy we may see him playing 
 beneath its ancient portal, which still remains un 
 altered. Beyond the Longfellow residence, with 
 its garden on either side, extending on the west 
 to the corner of Brown Street, is the two-story 
 wooden residence of Reuben Morton, on the site 
 now occupied by Morton Block. This house, 
 raised to three stories, now stands on Brown 
 Street. All the old family mansions here have 
 been made to give way to the demands of trade, 
 save the Longfellow residence, which still sturdily 
 maintains its position, while its ancient neighbors 
 have given place to lofty structures, which now 
 look down upon but cannot humble it. 
 
 In front of these mansions, extending from 
 Preble to Brown Street, is the wood market, 
 where the teams, loaded with cord-wood brought 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 93 
 
 in from the country, stand beneath the shade of a 
 row of trees, with a railing between them and the 
 sidewalk. The patient oxen feed upon the hay 
 thrown upon the ground, while the wood surveyor 
 measures the loads, and the teamsters bargain 
 with the townsmen. It is a rural scene in the 
 heart of the town. Passing a few small shops be 
 yond Brown Street, we come to " The Freema 
 son s Arms," the tavern built by Thomas Motley, 
 grandfather of John Lothrop Motley, the histo 
 rian. Motley is dead since 1808, and his tav 
 ern, which gives accommodation to the board 
 teams which come growling and creaking down 
 Main (now Congress) Street of a winter morning, 
 is now kept by Sukey Barker. The Motley 
 Block, in our day, perpetuates the memory of its 
 builder. Oak Street, which enters Main Street a 
 short distance above Motley s, boasts a grove of 
 red oaks, and Green Street, next beyond, leads 
 down to Deering s Woods, where for generations 
 the boys of Portland have gathered acorns, and of 
 which our poet sings, 
 
 " And Deering s Woods are fresh and fair, 
 
 And with joy that is almost pain 
 My heart goes back to wander there, 
 And among the dreams of the days that were, 
 I find my lost youth again." 
 
 What was the intellectual life of the old town ? 
 
94 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Up to the time of the Kevolution it had imported 
 its literature as well as the necessaries of life. 
 Parson Smith was jotting down in his journal 
 those quaint observations on the events of daily 
 life which were to interest the coming genera 
 tions. His colleague, the Eev. Dr. Deane, in 
 1790, published his " Georgical Dictionary," long 
 a standard work on agriculture. He was a poet, 
 too, and sang the praises of " Pitchwood Hill." 
 In 1816, when Longfellow was a boy of nine 
 years, an event of marked literary importance oc 
 curred, the publication in Portland of Enoch Lin 
 coln s poem of "The Village," a poem of more 
 than two thousand lines, remarkable for its ad 
 vanced moral sentiment, anticipating many of the 
 reforms of our day, as well as for its erudition and 
 its evenly sustained poetical merit. But at this 
 time the activity and energy of the people were 
 employed in procuring means of support, and in 
 the accumulation of wealth, rather than in culti 
 vating the sources of intellectual improvement. 
 Education was advancing, however, and a number 
 of young men were coming upon the stage of 
 action who were to shed the lustre of letters upon 
 the town. These were Nathaniel Deering, born 
 here in 1791; John Neal, also t a native, born in 
 1794 ; and Grenville Mellen, coming here from 
 Biddeford, where he was born in 1799. Among 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDA Y. 95 
 
 these seniors walked the boy Longfellow, who was 
 to outstrip them all. 
 
 In the ranks of the professions here there were 
 many able. men. The Rev. Dr. Deane, dying in 
 1S14, has left as his successor in the First Parish 
 that scholarly divine, the Rev. Ichabod Nichols. 
 The Rev. Dr. Payson, at the Second Parish, is 
 preaching those powerful sermons which are to 
 make his name famous. The Rev. Thomas B. 
 Ripley has begun his popular pastorate over the 
 First Baptist church. The Rev. Petrus S. Ten- 
 broeck is rector at St. Paul s. Elder Samuel 
 Rand is preaching to the Free- Will Baptists, and 
 the Rev. Russell Streeter is fighting the battle of 
 the Universalists in the newly-built church at the 
 corner of Congress and Pearl streets. 
 
 In the law there are eminent counselors, some 
 of whom are rising to distinction. Prentiss Mel- 
 len, Ezekiel Whitman, James D. Hopkins, Simon 
 Greenleaf, and the poet s father, Stephen Long 
 fellow, are names which have conferred honor on 
 the Cumberland bar. Among physicians, Dr. Na 
 thaniel Coffin, Jr., stands at the head of his pro 
 fession. There are Dr. Shirley Erving, too, and 
 Dr. Samuel Weed, and Dr. Stephen Cummings, 
 and Dr. Aaron Porter, in his knee-breeches and 
 green silk stockings, which, it is said, the cows 
 mistook for cornstalks. 
 
96 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 There are eminent merchants in the town, of 
 whom it is sufficient to mention the familiar names 
 of Matthew Cobb, Asa Clapp, William Chadwick, 
 Arthur McLellan, James Deering, and Albert 
 Newhall. These are gentlemen of the old school, 
 sustaining the shock of commercial disaster, and 
 extending the commerce of the town. 
 
 In social life the marked distinctions of the ante- 
 Revolutionary period are giving way under the 
 influence of our democratic institutions. Cocked 
 hats, bush wigs, and knee-breeches are passing 
 out, and pantaloons have come in. Old men 
 still wear queues and spencers, and disport their 
 shrunken shanks in silk stockings. A homely 
 style of speech prevails among the common peo 
 ple. Old men are " Daddies," old ladies are 
 "Marms," shipmasters are " Skippers," and school 
 teachers are " Masters." There are no stoves, 
 and open fires and brick ovens are in universal 
 use. The fire is raked up at night, and rekindled 
 in the morning by the use of flint, steel, and tin 
 der-boxes. Nearly every house has its barn, in 
 which is kept the cow, pastured during the day 
 on Munjoy or in Eoss s pasture. The boys go 
 after the cows at night-fall, driving them home 
 through the streets. There are few private car 
 riages kept in town, and fewer public vehicles. 
 When, in 1825, General Lafayette visits the town, 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 97 
 
 and Governor Parris gives a ball in his honor, at 
 his residence on Bridge (now Danforth) Street, 
 the site of which is now covered by the beautiful 
 lawn attached to the residence of H. P. Storer, 
 Esq., a storm coming up prevents the attendance 
 of a great part of the company invited, because of 
 the distance out of town and the scarcity of car 
 riages. The coin in circulation is chiefly Spanish 
 dollars, halves, quarters, pistareens, eighths, and 
 sixteenths, the latter two of which are known as 
 ninepences and fourpence alfpennies. Federal 
 money is so little recognized that prices are still 
 reckoned in shillings and pence two-and-six, 
 three-and-ninepence, seven-and-sixpence. It is a 
 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 a coaster, and perhaps be a week on the 
 passage. The old " Portland Gazette " and the 
 " Eastern Argus " came out once a week, and the 
 town-crier supplies the place of the daily news 
 paper. There are few amusements. Theatri 
 cal performances have been voted down ,in town 
 meeting, and prohibited under heavy penalties ; 
 but by 1820 the poor players venture to make an 
 occasional appearance, and set up their scenery in 
 
 7 
 
98 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Union Hall. It is not until 1830 that a theatre is 
 built, and it is soon converted into a church. In 
 the summer there are excursions by sailing boats 
 to the islands, with an occasional capsize and loss 
 of life. In the winter merry sleighing parties 
 drive out to " Broad s " for a dance and a supper. 
 These are merry times, especially if the party is 
 snowed up, and compelled 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 seated by 
 the sea." Such are the scenes to which the 
 thoughts of the poet go back, in after years, with 
 a man s love for the haunts of his childhood. 
 Here he recalls the sports of boyhood, and finds 
 his " lost youth " again. The old town has not 
 forgotten him. The city into which it has grown 
 delights to honor him. It cherishes the memory 
 of the days that were, and would fain recall him 
 to their familiar scenes. May he live long to re 
 visit the home of his boyhood, and to enjoy the 
 immortal youth which he has made his own. 
 
LONGFELLOW AS A STUDENT AND PRO 
 FESSOR AT BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 
 
 BY A. S. PACKARD, D. D., BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW was fortunate 
 in the inheritance of names honorable in the his 
 tory of the State, and of high repute for talents, 
 virtues, and all that constitutes true nobility. A 
 school-mate informs us that when he was entering 
 his fourteenth year he gave decided indications of 
 poetic taste and genius, anonymous pieces from 
 his pen, in the " Poet s Corner " of a newspaper of 
 this town, having attracted attention. I think he 
 and his brother Stephen must have been pupils 
 under Mr. Nehemiah Cleaveland, who had grad 
 uated from our college in 1813, and kept a private 
 school for boys in Portland in 1816 and 1817, and 
 then left the school for a tutorship in the college. 
 They were fitted for college, I have no doubt, by 
 Master Bezaleel Cushman, preceptor of Portland 
 Academy, whose name is honored among teachers 
 of that generation. I remember Mr. Cushman 
 well, and especially the pleasure of dining with 
 him at Hon. Stephen Longfellow s table, with 
 
100 HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 
 
 him, the preceptor of the academy, myself, the 
 young assistant of Mr. Nason, principal of Gorham 
 Academy, of which Mr. Longfellow was a trustee. 
 It was one of the numerous proofs of the court 
 eous and friendly interest that excellent and ad 
 mirable gentleman manifested in young men. 
 
 In September, 1821, Stephen and Henry Wads- 
 worth became Freshmen in Bowdoin College ; 
 Henry just entering the last half of his fifteenth 
 year, an attractive youth, with auburn locks, clear, 
 fresh, blooming complexion, and, as might be pre 
 sumed, of well-bred manners and bearing. 
 
 When we think of the distinction that has 
 crowned the class of 1825, a teacher may be 
 charged with singular lack of discrimination and 
 interest in his pupils who is compelled to confess 
 how scanty are his particular reminiscences of its 
 members; and this for the plain reason that no one 
 knew, or even dreamed, it may be, how famous 
 some of them were to become. I think it is a 
 tradition that Luther if not he, some renowned 
 German teacher used to doff his hat reverently 
 when he entered his school-room. On being asked 
 why he did so, " Because," said he, " I see in my 
 pupils future burgomasters and syndics of the city." 
 
 Now and then a very trivial circumstance im 
 prints the person of the pupil on the memory, 
 the eye, or some other feature, voice, gait, or 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 101 
 
 some incident of college life. The entrance ex 
 amination of Sergeant Smith Prentiss, of the class 
 of 1826, I recall with entire distinctness. He 
 came from Gorham, and I had been an assistant 
 there and when the lad, for he was scarcely 
 more than that, very lame, supporting his steps 
 with a staff, of a fresh, healthful, spirited coun 
 tenance, and offering himself for Junior standing, 
 a heavy trial, we thought, took his seat, my sym 
 pathy was awakened at once. I see him with 
 perfect distinctness as he sat at the long table 
 in a back room of the old chemical laboratory, 
 the receptacle of chemicals and minerals for ex 
 amination and analysis, a droll omnium gath 
 erum it must have seemed to the young candi 
 date; and my feelings led me to open my part 
 of the pressure he was to undergo in the Greek of 
 two years very gently. I soon found he needed 
 no such favor, but that, entirely self-possessed and 
 at his ease, he was ready at every point. No 
 stretch of fancy would be likely to anticipate that 
 the lad before me was to become one of the most 
 prominent men of the South at the bar, yet 
 more in legislative halls and on the political plat 
 form. 
 
 Were we blind and dull of appreciation that 
 we did not forecast, during those four years, two 
 lives, one in the front seat of the class-room, and 
 
102 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 one in the third seat back, which were to leave 
 names in the prose and poetry of the age, lasting 
 as the language in which their genius found ex 
 pression ? 
 
 I recall the appearance of a few of that class of 
 182 5, as they sat in the old class-room of Maine 
 Hall, Bradbury, Josiah Stover Little, Hawthorne, 
 the Longfellows, Shepley, and others. Why ? I 
 cannot say why. It so happened. I cannot testify 
 concerning him whose name we, and I may add 
 the civilized world, fondly cherish, any more than 
 a general statement of his unblemished character 
 as a pupil and a true gentleman in all his relations 
 to the college and its teachers. It is a 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 professorship of modern 
 languages was established his recollection of that 
 specimen of the young Sophomore s taste and 
 scholarship led him to propose him for the posi 
 tion. 
 
 Of young Longfellow s standing as a scholar in 
 college, one may judge from his assignment at 
 Commencement of an English oration, when fewer 
 parts of that rank were given than of late years. 
 His was the first claim to the poem ; but as the 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 103 
 
 poem had no definite rank, it was thought due to 
 him, since his scholarship bore a high mark, that 
 he should receive an appointment which placed 
 his scholarship beyond question. His English 
 oration had for its subject " Our Native Writers." 
 " Chatter ton and his Poems " was assigned him as 
 a subject, and was so published in the Commence 
 ment Order of Exercises, but was subsequently 
 changed by a pen. The class poem was assigned 
 to Frederic Mellen, who was in reality more than 
 an ordinary college poet. 
 
 I have just said that Longfellow had the first 
 claim as the poet of the class. During his college 
 life he contributed to the periodicals of the day 
 "An April Day," "Autumn," "Hymn of the Mo 
 ravian Nuns," " The Spirit of Poetry," " Woods in 
 Winter," and " Sunrise on the Hills," which were 
 received with great favor, as early blossoms of a 
 spring of peculiar promise ; and still, I think, they 
 retain a place in later editions of his maturer pro 
 ductions. Some of them appeared in the " Liter 
 ary Gazette," a Boston publication. The editor 
 of that periodical was James G. Carter (Harvard, 
 1820), a gentleman of ability, whose name is 
 honored among active promoters of popular edu 
 cation of that time. I was spending an evening 
 with him in Boston, when he asked me what 
 young man in our college sent them so fine po- 
 
104 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 etry. It was Longfellow, then a Junior, I think, 
 in college, and I was happy to report of him as 
 one whose scholarship and character were quite 
 on a level with his poetry. 
 
 Our two most notable literary occasions of the 
 college year, aside from the official exhibitions 
 and Commencement, were the fall anniversaries of 
 the two leading societies, Athenaean and Peucin- 
 ian, each putting forth its best. Longfellow, in 
 November, 1824, the first term of his Senior 
 year, pronounced the poem of the Peucinian. 
 
 When Mr. Longfellow left college he began the 
 study of law in his father s office ; but he had no 
 heart for professional life, and in a year or two 
 the position for which he was peculiarly fitted, 
 and which he adorned, was opened for him. The 
 professorship of modern language, for which 
 Madam Bowdoin, some years before, had given 
 a thousand dollars as a corner-stone at least for 
 its foundation, was established, and he cheerfully 
 accepted appointment to the professorship. He 
 immediately took passage for Europe, where he 
 spent nearly four years in Spain, France, Italy, 
 and Germany, preparing himself for the inviting 
 sphere now opening before him. In 1829 he as 
 sumed the duties of the office, which he faithfully 
 and successfully performed until, with the regret 
 and disappointment of his colleagues and the 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 105 
 
 authorities of the college, he accepted a similar 
 position at Harvard, as successor of the distin 
 guished Professor Ticknor. 
 
 And now as to the character of his work while 
 with us, a few words will suffice. 
 
 He approved himself a teacher who never 
 wearied of his work. He won by his gentle 
 grace, and commanded respect by his self-respect 
 and his respect for his office, never allowing an 
 infringement of the decorum of the recitation 
 room. The department was a new one, and in 
 lack of suitable text-books he prepared a transla 
 tion of a popular French grammar, which went 
 through several editions, an Italian grammar, 
 Proverbes Dramatiques, Spanish Tales for the 
 class-room, a 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." 
 
 He also contributed, while at Brunswick, arti 
 cles to the "North American Review," which 
 gave him reputation in literary circles. At the 
 Commencement of 1832 he delivered the poem 
 before the Phi Beta Kappa. 
 
 I have limited myself to the special sphere of 
 remark assigned me. Of Mr. Longfellow s social 
 life I have said nothing. It began with us, when 
 
106 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 he carried to Brunswick, as his bride, one of the 
 daughters of Portland, and opened a home of 
 taste, refinement, and graceful hospitality, which 
 he left for another in a wider sphere, and at a 
 centre of cherished historical associations, and 
 which has given a welcome to his fellow country 
 men of the world of letters. 
 
THE GENIUS OF LONGFELLOW. 
 
 BY HON. GEORGE F. TALBOT, PORTLAND. 
 
 EMERSON has said, " All that we call sacred 
 history attests that the birth of a poet is the prin 
 cipal event in chronology." Of the famous bards 
 of our time, whose songs have cheered and in 
 spired the English-speaking race, we must assign 
 to the illustrious poet whose birthday we com 
 memorate the nearest place to the popular heart. 
 It 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, 
 I find my lost youth again," 
 
 should reciprocate by some expression of its admi 
 ration and gratitude the affectionate sentiments he 
 has ever cherished towards it. It 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 truth 
 fully spoken among those whose characters or pub- 
 
108 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 lie services have done honor to our State, should 
 celebrate the genius of a poet whose fame has out 
 grown the limits of the State wherein it had its 
 birth, and the great country which it has honored. 
 In assigning to Longfellow a popularity preemi 
 nent among his fellows in the poetic art, I do not 
 forget the delight with which, for a whole genera 
 tion, the American people have read the exquisite 
 versification and tender and lofty sentiment that 
 especially characterize the earlier poems of Ten 
 nyson. But while, in the growing depth of his 
 thinking, the great English 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, sobered to homely plainness of speech the 
 inspirations that once burst forth in rhythmic mu 
 sic, and studied only to reproduce the naked sim 
 plicity and dramatic reality of history. Then, 
 too, Tennyson s popularity is not a just measure 
 of his merit, because a full consciousness of his 
 own powers, and a sensitiveness characterizing 
 the irritable race of poets, has hedged him about 
 with a well-respected hauteur, that shuts out alike 
 genial sympathy and serviceable criticism, while it 
 preserves a seclusion as necessary to his effective 
 work as it is grateful to his sensitive feelings. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 109 
 
 On the other hand, Longfellow has made it the 
 inviolable maxim of his art that, as poetry is noble 
 sentiment expressed in beautiful language, fault- 
 lessness of expression is always a condition of high 
 excellence. Carlyle has strenuously advised men 
 who would instruct their age to speak out in plain 
 prose what they have to say, or otherwise hold 
 their peace. The capacity of language to be the 
 vehicle of the profoundest philosophy, the noblest 
 sentiment, the most delicate humor, Mr. Carlyle 
 has himself successfully exemplified. But if, in 
 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. Longfellow has ever 
 respected. Besides this, a thoroughly genial and 
 friendly nature has kept him accessible to all 
 other minds, and hospitable and courteous to all 
 persons attracted by his genius, no matter in how 
 homely or intrusive a form this admiration has 
 been expressed. Thus, while in Tennyson s song 
 we detect a tone which expresses the daintiness of 
 his disdain for less exquisitely endowed natures, 
 Longfellow invites the confidence of narrower and 
 limited minds by the warmth of his human sympa 
 thies, and by his tender appreciation of the com 
 mon joys and sorrows of universal life. 
 
110 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Sixty years is a 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 equip 
 ment to undertake it. In his grave and sad salu 
 tatory, delivered at Bowdoin on the fiftieth anni 
 versary of his graduation, he gave this counsel to 
 the young scholars, listening spell-bound by the 
 charm of his verse and the venerable beauty of 
 his presence : 
 
 " Study yourselves ; and most of all note well 
 Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel." 
 
 It told the story of his own splendid success. In 
 his very boyhood, among scenes that have for 
 us the charm of home, Nature revealed herself to 
 his sight and soul in the beauty of sea and sky, 
 cliff and forest, and he felt that whatever aims or 
 ambitions were open to other men, for him there 
 was the task to interpret those mysterious voices 
 of the night and day dreams of a dawning fancy 
 that had been imparted to him ; 
 
 " And as imagination bodies forth 
 
 The forms of things unknown, . . . 
 Turn them to shapes, and give to airy nothing ; 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 He could say as Wordsworth nobly said of him 
 self, 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. HI 
 
 " On man, on nature, and on human life, 
 Musing in solitude, I oft perceive 
 Fair trains of imagery before me rise 
 Accompanied by feelings of delight, 
 Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed." 
 
 For us a new charm must come into these famil 
 iar scenes that confront our daily sight, the 
 graceful spires of churches, the quaint red tower 
 of the Observatory, rising from the clustering 
 trees that mark the sweep of the closely-built 
 ridge of the peninsula, the great sea thrusting its 
 shining fingers among the jutting headlands and 
 wooded islands, the magnificent fringe of Deer- 
 ing s Oaks, and the dusky purple of the White 
 Mountains and the Oxford hills, when we re 
 member that it was pictures like these that awoke 
 in our poet s young mind the consciousness of his 
 powers and assigned to him the work of his life. 
 Thus he tells this early experience : 
 
 " And dreams of that which cannot die, 
 
 Bright visions, came to me, 
 As lapped in thought I used to lie, 
 And gaze into the summer sky, 
 Where the sailing clouds went by, 
 
 Like ships upon the sea ; 
 
 " Dreams that the soul of youth engage 
 
 Ere Fancy has been quelled ; 
 Old legends of the monkish page, 
 Traditions of the saint and sage, 
 
112 HENRY WADSW011TH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Tales that have the rime of age, 
 And chronicles of Eld. 
 
 " And, loving still these quaint old themes, 
 
 Even in the city s throng 
 I feel the freshness of the streams, 
 That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams, 
 Water the green land of dreams, 
 
 The holy land of song." 
 
 It is easy to see now, and thus to account for 
 the perfection and completeness of his work, that 
 all his studies, all the employments and incidents 
 of his life, more than this, the friendships and 
 domestic joys and sorrows which have been his 
 experience, contributed to strengthen the pow 
 ers of his imagination, to perfect the art of his 
 expression, and to furnish the materials for the 
 varied music of his verse. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow became a poet by the natural 
 and delicate sensitiveness of his mind to whatever 
 is picturesque in nature, complete in art, pathetic 
 in incident, or romantic in history. To his rare 
 perception 
 
 * Wondrous truths, and manifest as wondrous, 
 
 God hath written in those stars above ; 
 But not less in the bright flowerets under us 
 Stands the revelation of his love." 
 
 " And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, 
 Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 113 
 
 Of the self-same, universal being, 
 
 Which is throbbing in his brain and heart." 
 
 In his youth and in the poems of that period 
 this susceptibility to the beauty of things, and to 
 the lessons which they teach the well-ordered and 
 docile mind, is particularly manifest. He said 
 then, 
 
 " Oh what a glory doth this world put on 
 For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth 
 Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks 
 On duties well performed, and days well spent ! " 
 
 And in another early poem this was the tonic 
 cheerfulness he found in communion with Nature : 
 
 " If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep 
 Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, 
 Go to the woods and hills ! No tears 
 Dim the sweet look that Nature wears." 
 
 Emerson says, " The great majority of men 
 seem to be minors, who have not yet come into 
 possession of their own, or mutes, who cannot re 
 port the conversation they have had with Nature. 
 There is some obstruction or some excess of 
 phlegm in our constitution, which does not suffer 
 them to yield their due effect. Too feeble fall the 
 impressions of nature on us to make us artists. 
 The poet is the person in whom the powers are 
 in balance, the man without impediment, who sees 
 and handles that which others dream of, trav- 
 
114 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 erses the whole scale of experience, and is repre 
 sentative of man in virtue of being the largest 
 power to receive and to impart." 
 
 For us, the great majority, obstructed in faculty 
 and feebly responsive to the impressions of nature, 
 Longfellow has done this needed office. He sees 
 what we dream, traverses the range of our experi 
 ence, and by his larger power to receive and im 
 part has become representative of all our finer 
 sentiments. But, in saying this, we must dis 
 criminate between greater and less. There are 
 ranges of sublime vision from which he has sedu 
 lously kept himself aloof, depths of philosophic 
 speculation into which his thoroughly devout 
 spirit has never entered, holy ground of inspira 
 tion into which, even with unshodden feet, he has 
 not presumed to walk. Let him ever describe his 
 own genius, although he will do it not only tune 
 fully, but with a too modest self-depreciation. In 
 the " Spanish Student," a drama full of the most 
 picturesque situations, gushing with the enthu 
 siasm of youthful feeling and enlivened with some 
 of the Sweetest songs in the English language, he 
 thus depicts the poetic work he has done : 
 
 " All the means of action 
 The shapeless masses, the materials 
 Lie everywhere about us. What we need 
 Is the celestial fire to change the flint 
 Into transparent crystal, bright and clear. 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 115 
 
 That fire is genius ! The rude peasant sits 
 
 At evening in his smoky cot, and draws 
 
 With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall. 
 
 The son of genius comes, foot-sore with travel, 
 
 And begs a shelter from the inclement night. 
 
 He takes the charcoal from the peasant s hand, 
 
 And, by the magic of his touch at once 
 
 Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine, 
 
 And, in the eyes of the astonished clown, 
 
 It gleams a diamond ! Even thus transformed, 
 
 Rude popular traditions and old tales 
 
 Shine as immortal poems, at the touch 
 
 Of some poor, houseless, homeless, wandering bard, 
 
 Who had but a night s lodging for his pains." 
 
 It was not only a confession of his tastes, but a 
 too modest assignment of his own rank, when, 
 after achievements that had made him famous 
 throughout the world, he thus sang : 
 " Come, read to me some poem, 
 
 Some simple and heart-felt lay, 
 
 That shall soothe this restless feeling, 
 
 And banish the thoughts of day. 
 
 " Not from the grand old masters, 
 
 Not from the bards sublime, 
 Whose distant footsteps echo 
 Through the corridors of Time. 
 
 " For, like strains of martial music, 
 Their mighty thoughts suggest 
 Life s endless toil and endeavor ; 
 And to-night I long for rest. 
 
116 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 " Read from some humbler poet. 
 
 Whose songs gushed from his heart, 
 As showers from the clouds of summer, 
 Or tears from the eyelids start." 
 
 In a sense that is not so true of any other poet 
 who has written in the English language, Mr. 
 Longfellow is the poet of the people. No creative 
 artist ever had a larger and more immediate re 
 ward for his completed work. He sang for the men 
 and women yes, and for the children of his 
 country and his time ; sang with a cultivated and 
 exquisite appreciation of their tastes, their feel 
 ings, their ideals ; sang not of the eccentric expe 
 riences, the insatiable ambitions, the tragic heart- 
 breakings, of heroic souls, aloof from their kind, 
 but of the daily cares, the simple satisfactions, and 
 the common fates of men as men, of the hard 
 ships of toil, of the misery of defeated endeavor, 
 of the sombre weariness of backward-looking age, 
 and of the pathos of death. Depicting experi 
 ences so universal, appealing to sentiments so 
 characteristic of humanity, the response of the 
 people he has addressed has been immediate, uni 
 versal, and hearty. He has not had to wait for 
 appreciation, nor to appeal to time to bring an 
 other age into more congenial relations with his 
 feelings. Every chord he has struck has given 
 quick and harmonious echoes. Now for many 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 117 
 
 years no poem of his, however brief, has been 
 published which universal journalism did not take 
 note of as a conspicuous event of current history. 
 What he sends to the hands of the printer on 
 one day on the next is a household word by a 
 thousand firesides, and its sweet melodies are 
 ringing among the hallowed voices of as many 
 homes. There is a lyric sweetness, a tender, in 
 telligible sentiment so accordant with the common 
 experience of all lives, in all that .he has written, 
 that no elocutionist has been required to render 
 its simple melody, no philosophic critic to mediate 
 between its subtle meaning and the popular intel 
 ligence. 
 
 More than any other of our poets we have 
 waited for him to celebrate and fitly interpret the 
 great events in our national history. Looking 
 through the dull annals of a people in primitive 
 combat with the hard conditions of nature, with 
 an absorbed and patient thrift building, in the 
 wilderness of a new world, homes into which in a 
 later generation might come the culture and re 
 finement which continuous prosperity brings, he 
 has found whatever there is in their history or 
 their legends that is heroic, or tragic, or capable 
 of an ethical lesson, and touched it in the telling 
 with the glory of his own genius. How noble and 
 pathetic was the tribute he paid to his three 
 
118 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 friends, Felton, Agassiz, and Sumner ! How sweet 
 to a great poet s heart must be such delicate and 
 discriminating praises as he has bestowed upon 
 Tennyson and Whittier, the great brothers of his 
 art ! Of the former he sings, 
 
 " Not of the howling dervishes of song, 
 Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, 
 Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart." 
 
 And the lofty piety of the latter commands this 
 
 tribute : 
 
 " O thou, whose daily life anticipates 
 The life to come, and in whose thought and word 
 The spiritual world preponderates, 
 Hermit of Amesbury ! thou, too, hast heard 
 Voices and melodies from beyond the gates, 
 And speakest only when thy soul is stirred ! " 
 
 The Romans had one word to signify the poet 
 and the prophet, and all the older prophecy of the 
 world is poetry. The converse also is true, for 
 since poetry is the daily newspaper and court 
 journal of the ideal world, it is the prediction of 
 all that is yet to become fact and history. We 
 did not heed the vaticination this prophet uttered, 
 but uttered too late to avert the catastrophe he 
 foreshadowed : 
 
 " There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, 
 
 Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel, 
 Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, 
 And shake the pillars of this Commonweal." 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 119 
 
 How cheering was his note in the agony of our 
 struggle for national life ! 
 
 " Ho, brave land ! with hearts like these 
 Thy flag, that is rent in twain, 
 Shall be one again, 
 And without a seam ! " 
 
 Emerson says, again, " The writer, like the 
 priest, must be exempted from secular labor ; his 
 work needs a frolic health ; he must be at the 
 top of his condition." We have had eminent and 
 successful poets, who have been also historians, 
 journalists, teachers, preachers, critics, metaphy 
 sicians, reformers, diplomats, and bankers, giving 
 to the jealous muse a divided allegiance. It has 
 been the good fortune of Longfellow that he has 
 been kept, with no distracting employments, in 
 studies that fed the fire of his poetic passion with 
 new material, and at the top of a sound and 
 healthy condition of productive labor. The only 
 department of science in which he has been a 
 successful teacher is the science of language and 
 of the deft use of winged words, the myriad-toned 
 instrument of poesy. Especially has his mastery 
 of the languages, French, German, Italian, and 
 Spanish, put within his reach those treasures of 
 romantic story, that weird blending of history and 
 legend in which the earlier chronicles, poems, 
 ballads, and folk-lore of Europe abound, which 
 
120 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 have a charm for us, thoroughly modern and 
 secular as we are, that they have not for any other 
 people. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow has that vivid imagination which 
 sees as realities its own illusions. He meets an 
 other requirement of our great master of the po 
 etic art : " He believes in his poetry. He par 
 takes of the feast he spreads, and kindles and 
 amuses himself with that which amuses us." 
 Whole poems of his are devoted to the delineation 
 of these romantic legends of our ancestors across 
 the sea, while there is scarcely a song that is not 
 enlivened and enriched by some legendary allu 
 sion, some sparkling jewel picked up by him in 
 his loving walks among the graves and monu 
 ments of knights and saints, along the corridors of 
 ruined abbeys, the dry moats of ivy-crowned cas 
 tles, and the dim shadows under the arches of vast 
 cathedrals. Indeed, it has been charged that he 
 has so deeply imbibed the spirit of this antique 
 and foreign romance as to be no longer either 
 modern or national in his spirit or method. When 
 we remember with what a pathetic tenderness he 
 has recreated for us our own legend of the public 
 tragedy of a pious and rural people driven into 
 perpetual exile, a tragedy saddened by the private 
 grief of a devoted and loving maiden enduring the 
 exile of her race and her own deeper loss in a 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 121 
 
 hopeless search for her betrothed lover, and find 
 ing her trysting-place only in old age, by the bed 
 side of pestilence ; when we read the song of Hia 
 watha, and see with what artistic faithfulness he 
 has wrought into verse, the very wildness of which 
 has in it a sound of the woods, those poetic ideas 
 which have haunted the minds of all sensitive per 
 sons in connection with the customs, costumes, 
 character, and fortunes of the strange race of abo 
 rigines, whom our race has supplanted on this 
 continent, we can see that Mr. Longfellow is no 
 less an American poet because so much of his 
 inspiration came as a whiff of the Old World over 
 the sea. This native material he has worked so 
 well is only so much less abundant. 
 
 Among the characteristic excellences of Mr. 
 Longfellow as a poet, his fidelity to the estab 
 lished canons of versification I have already 
 spoken of. I know the liberties great masters of 
 thought may take and have taken with expres 
 sion. I know the modern taste that considers 
 conformity to the regularity of measurement and 
 the necessity of rhyme mere mechanical arts, that 
 degrade and enslave the mind. I am aware that 
 Emerson, himself among the order of great poets, 
 and lacking general appreciation by his lawless 
 ness in conforming to the established rules of ex 
 pression, has said, "Not metres, but a metre- 
 
122 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 making argument makes a poem, a thought so 
 passionate and alive that, like the spirit of a plant 
 or an animal, it has an architecture of: its own, 
 and adorns Nature with a new thing." I know 
 the aesthetic craze that has ennobled the howling 
 dervishes of song. I know the fashion that insists 
 that the metreless epigrams of Walt Whitman 
 are noblest poetry, epigrams wherein the terse 
 sententiousness of the proverb gives place to a 
 stately grandiloquence, which the moment the 
 music of the verse ceases becomes ridiculous. 
 When on the stage the manager wishes to insure 
 that a tender and pathetic passage of the play 
 shall not be laughed at, he introduces an accom 
 paniment of solemn music to lift his auditors into 
 the required mood. It is an effect the poet can 
 not quite disdain. 
 
 But, notwithstanding these eccentricities of taste, 
 Emerson himself confessed that he " recalled every 
 good poem by its rhythm, and detected an unskill 
 ful writer by the poverty of his chimes." That 
 art cannot be a mere conventional or childish one 
 which in all languages has charmed the human 
 ear and stirred in the human soul the noblest en 
 thusiasms and the most heroic actions; nor can 
 that be a tawdry rhetorical trick, unfit to hamper 
 the wings of genius, which Homer and Dante, 
 Milton and Goethe, found to be such furtherance 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 123 
 
 to the effectiveness and impressiveness of their 
 grand speech. 
 
 Not a little of his fame Mr. Longfellow owes to 
 the fact that he is a great artist in the construc 
 tion of rhythm and rhyme. Kindred to his sus 
 ceptibility to poetic influences, the product of a 
 fervid and impressible imagination, there is in him 
 a delicate sensitiveness to the music of language. 
 I know of no writer, whose verse has this relish of 
 melody and music, who has produced by the same 
 kind of talent that makes a great singer, as it 
 were by sleight of tongue, those effects of meas 
 ured sequences of sounds, which less happily en 
 dowed writers have inadequately achieved by the 
 studied arrangement of dactyls and spondees, all 
 scanning correctly, but which somehow will never 
 sing themselves. 
 
 There are lyrical effects produced on the ear 
 by some of his stanzas, wherein the rhymes and 
 grand flow of the rhythm are as complete as in 
 Milton s Lycidas, while the structure of the verse 
 is better balanced and more symmetrical. Only 
 Tennyson s earlier odes have the same delicate 
 and facile grace. Take this specimen from the 
 "Quadroon Girl:"- 
 
 " The Slaver in the broad lagoon 
 
 Lay moored with idle sail; 
 
 He waited for the rising moon, 
 
 And for the evening gale. 
 
124 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 " Under the shore his boat was tied, 
 
 And all her listless crew 
 Watched the gray alligator slide 
 Into the still bayou." 
 
 Or this, from the " Fire of Drift- Wood : " 
 
 " The windows, rattling in their frames, 
 
 The ocean, roaring up the beach, 
 The gusty blast, the bickering flames, 
 All mingled vaguely in our speech." 
 
 But why select from volumes that lie on every 
 table, from songs read by the children of all 
 English-speaking people, when, from the earliest 
 products of glowing youth to the faithfully 
 wrought creations of an age that gives no token 
 of decay, all that he has written form one grand 
 diapason of harmony, rich in the blending of 
 varied melodies, and show with what a master s 
 hand 
 
 " He touched the tender stops of various quills 
 With eager thought warbling his Doric lay " ? 
 
 To make this inadequate sketch of the genius of 
 Longfellow less incomplete, let me in fine speak 
 of the elevation, purity, and lofty piety of all that 
 he has written, wherein can be found " no line 
 which, dying, he could wish to blot." Not in the 
 slightest degree has he enlarged the license the 
 generous world always permits to genius to excite 
 a prurient taste or corrupt the heart by the delin- 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 125 
 
 eation of unregulated passions, reveling in the 
 glories of art or in the beauties of an unconven 
 tional society, embosomed in primitive nature, and 
 amenable only to its laws. The loves of his he 
 roes and heroines have been the pure domestic 
 loves, out of which have grown the sanctities of 
 home, the pieties of the household, the orderly 
 social life of man. He has been the preacher of 
 faith in the midst of skepticism and doubt, of hope 
 and trust when it had become a fashion of the 
 cultured world to regret the fortune of man and 
 criticise the appointments of nature. For the 
 manifest evils of life, brought to his susceptible 
 heart by a sympathetic nature, and to his own ex 
 perience by terrible visitations of sorrow, to vary 
 the fortunes of a favored and happy life, his uni 
 form lesson has been patience. 
 
 " Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 
 
 Not from the ground arise, 
 But oftentimes celestial benedictions 
 Assume this dark disguise. " 
 
 " Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ;i 
 Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
 Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
 Into each life some rain must fall, 
 
 Some days must be dark and dreary." 
 
 In religion and all religions he has not only 
 recognized with a poet s relish all that was pict- 
 
126 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 uresque in the grand cathedral, the chanted 
 prayers by candle-light, the dirges sung by the 
 church over dead heroes, the lonely recluse in his 
 cell meditating on death and God, the martyr to 
 his faith sending his soul to heaven upon the 
 spires of flame that is consuming his flesh, but he 
 has recognized as well the fundamental truth and 
 power that has been exercised in all religions to 
 raise the souls of men from the fears, the infirmi 
 ties, and the sins that beset the mortal life to 
 peace, self-renunciation, and submission to the 
 Supreme order of the universe ; while the catholic 
 ity of his faith he has himself well expressed in 
 this his " Law of Life : " 
 
 " Live I, so live I, 
 
 To my Lord heartily, 
 To my Prince faithfully, 
 
 To my neighbor honestly ; 
 Die I, so die I." 
 
 Grateful for the service his long and industrious 
 life has enabled him to do for his country and his 
 age, we crown with our praise his noble work, and 
 rejoice in the serenity and peace which a well-or 
 dered mind can gather in age from the recollection 
 of a well-spent life. 
 
LETTER FROM HON. J. W. BRADBURY. 
 
 WASHINGTON, February 25, 1882. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I sincerely regret that I cannot be with 
 you at the meeting of the Society in honor of our dis 
 tinguished native author, and that I have not the op 
 portunity, in the midst of my occupations on my journey 
 to the South, to say what I would like to have said on 
 this interesting occasion. 
 
 We are all proud to recognize the fact that Longfellow 
 has won a place in history, that his name is enrolled 
 with the names of those who were not born to die ; and 
 it is peculiarly appropriate that a society devoted to 
 historic research should avail itself of an occasion like 
 the present, in the city of his birth, to do honor to one 
 who has reflected so much honor not only upon his native 
 land, but also upon the republic of letters throughout 
 the world. 
 
 Let us send him our congratulations that he is spared 
 by a kind Providence to receive on the seventy-fifth 
 anniversary of his birth the testimonials of the love and 
 veneration in which he is held by hosts of friends in the 
 Old World and the New. 
 
 I first knew Longfellow when I entered as a Sophomore 
 in the class of which he was a member in 1822 ; and I like 
 to think of him as I then knew him. His slight, erect 
 figure, delicate complexion, and intelligent expression of 
 
128 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 countenance come back to rne indelibly associated with 
 his name. 
 
 He was always a gentleman in his deportment, and a 
 model in his character and habits. For a year or more 
 we had our rooms out of college and in the same vicinity, 
 and I consequently saw much more of him than of many 
 others of our class. I recollect that at our Junior exhi 
 bition a discussion upon the respective claims of the two 
 races of men to this continent was assigned to Longfellow 
 and myself. He had the character of King Philip, and 
 I of Miles Standish. He maintained that the continent 
 was given by the Great Spirit to the Indians, and that 
 the English were wrongful intruders. My reply, as 
 nearly as I can recall it, was that the aborigines were 
 claiming more than their equal share of the earth, and 
 that the Great Spirit never intended that so few in 
 number should hold the whole continent for hunting- 
 grounds, and that we had a right to a share of it to 
 improve and cultivate. Whether this occurrence had 
 anything to do in suggesting the subject for one of his 
 admirable poems or not, one thing is certain, that he 
 subsequently made a great deal more of Miles Standish 
 than I did on that occasion. 
 
 As a scholar Longfellow always maintained a high 
 rank in a class that contained such names as Hawthorne, 
 Little, Cilley, Cheever, Abbott, and others. Although 
 he was supposed to be somewhat devoted to the Muses, 
 he never came to the recitation room unprepared with 
 his lessons. Hawthorne, on the contrary, shy and retiring 
 in his habits, always appeared to be so much absorbed 
 in his own thoughts, or occupied with one or the other of 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 129 
 
 his special friends, Franklin Pierce or Horatio Bridge, 
 that he paid little attention to preparation for the reci 
 tation room, and to us superficial observers he did not 
 give much promise that he was to place himself in the 
 front rank of the best writers in the English language. 
 Cilley was a young man of great promise, and possessed 
 qualities that would have made him eminent in civil and 
 military life, had he not been prematurely cut off at the 
 commencement of his career. 
 
 At Commencement Longfellow had one of the three 
 English orations assigned to the class, Josiah S. Little, 
 from Portland, having the valedictory, which was first in 
 rank. At that time, and for more than thirty years after 
 wards, the English orations outranked the Latin in old 
 Bowdoin. I allude to this fact to correct an error that 
 occurred in a biographical notice of our worthy class 
 mate, Benson, in giving him a rank he would never have 
 claimed for himself, because he had the Latin salutatory 
 at Commencement. 
 
 I find that I must now close abruptly without adding 
 anything more, or I shall fail to mail this letter of excuse 
 in season to reach you. Please make my apology to the 
 Society for failing to furnish them with such a letter as 
 they ought to have received, and believe me, yours, 
 
 J. W. BRADBUEY. 
 
 H. W. BRYANT, ESQ., Sec y M. H. S. 
 
LETTER FROM HON. ISRAEL WASHBURN, JR. 
 
 EUREKA SPRINGS, ARK., February 9, 1882. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. BRYANT, I received last evening 
 your letter of the 3d instant, from which I am happy to 
 learn that the Maine Historical Society will hold on the 
 27th instant, being the anniversary of the birth of the 
 poet Longfellow, a meeting for the purpose of testifying 
 their appreciation of the genius, character, and works of 
 the most widely known and illustrious of all the natives 
 of our State. 
 
 I deeply regret that I cannot be present on that occa 
 sion to take the part in its exercises which your kind 
 ness has suggested ; but I am here in attendance on an 
 invalid brother, who lias come to these waters to repair, 
 if it may be, his shattered health. I see no prospect of 
 being able to leave him in season to be present at this 
 meeting. 
 
 Maine is exceptionally rich, I think, in great and 
 celebrated names, from the early provincial days, when 
 the Americans first knighted by the crown of Great 
 Britain were those natives of Maine, Sir William 
 Phips, a Governor of Massachusetts, and Sir William 
 Pepperell, the hero of Louisburg, to the present time. 
 Among these memorable men may be mentioned those 
 heroes upon land and sea, the Prebles ; those states 
 men of the first quarter of the present century, Rufus, 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 131 
 
 William, and Cyrus King ; and the statesmen of a later 
 period, George Evans, a Senator of the United States 
 when the Senate was made august by such men as 
 Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, to the greatest of whom 
 he was felt by his associates to be hardly second ; and 
 William Pitt Fessenden, also a Senator, who in the most 
 exciting debate of modern times convinced his oppo 
 nents that the Senate contained no member who wielded 
 a more dangerous or more polished blade. Of authors 
 and men of letters, the names of Nathaniel P. Willis, 
 John Neal, Seba Smith, the original Jack Downing, 
 Henry B. Smith, and Nathaniel Deering will not be soon 
 forgotten. While, of life-time residents, or of those 
 who have lived long enough with us to take on local 
 shape and complexion, or who have consecrated our soil 
 like General Knox, by leaving their ashes to be mingled 
 with it, we point proudly to Knox ; to Edward Payson, 
 the theologian and preacher, whose fame has extended to 
 two hemispheres ; and to Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose 
 boyhood was passed on the shores of Lake Sebago, and 
 whose later youth was occupied by his college course at 
 Brunswick, where he was the contemporary of Long 
 fellow. 
 
 But among all these names, and all other names, we 
 shall not, nor will posterity, hesitate to assign the 
 supreme place which will make our State to be longest 
 remembered, to the poet whose works, genius, and life 
 you will meet to recognize and honor. 
 
 You speak of a probable paper by Mr. Goold on Gen 
 eral Wadsworth, the maternal grandfather of the poet, 
 and on such an occasion his father will not be forgotten. 
 
132 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 You know that he was one of the foremost men of the 
 
 State in his day, a member of Congress, a learned lawyer, 
 
 an eloquent advocate, known by his contemporaries as 
 
 the " orator of the silver tongue," and particularly as one 
 
 " Who bore without abuse 
 
 The grand old name of gentleman." 
 
 To this Society the interest and enjoyment of the 
 occasion will be enhanced by the knowledge that the 
 poet has never lost his love for his native State, and that 
 he continues to take a lively interest in her people, her 
 history, her welfare, and her honor. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 ISRAEL WASHBUEN, JE. 
 H. W. BEYAXT, ESQ., Sec. M. II. S. 
 
 The following poem by Mr. Washburn accom 
 panied this letter : 
 
 TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Lines suggested ~by his poem "My Lost Youth" 
 
 They err who say the poet dies, 
 
 Or suffers foul eclipse ; 
 Old age is never in his eyes, 
 
 Nor palsy on his lips. 
 
 Nature and love and truth and faith 
 
 Know no black biting frost ; 
 The poet feels no bated breath, 
 
 His youth is never lost. 
 
 I. W., JR. 
 
TRIBUTE FROM HON. JOSEPH WILLIAMSON. 
 
 LEIGH HUNT pleasantly says, u I cannot pass through 
 Westminster, without thinking of Milton ; or the Bor 
 ough, without thinking of Chaucer or Shakespeare ; or 
 Gray s Inn, without calling Bacon to mind ; or Blooms- 
 bury Square, without Steele and Aikenside." A similar 
 impressiveness attaches to any locality consecrated by 
 the genius of him whose birthday we are now cele 
 brating. Not to go beyond his native State, who can 
 approach this u beautiful town, that is seated by the 
 sea," and look upon u the shadows of Deering s Woods," 
 or wander among the pines of Brunswick, "that mur 
 mur in low monotone," without feeling that the magic 
 pen of the poet has imparted to them an interest which 
 they possessed not before ? 
 
 Assured that the increase of years will give a value to 
 every object and place with which Longfellow has been 
 associated, I beg to present to the Society some memorials 
 of his college life : a view of the halls of Bowdoin, " in 
 whose seclusion and repose" his fame was born, and a 
 catalogue of the institution, published sixty years ago 
 this month, in which his name appears as an humble 
 Freshman. 
 
 There is a story that at some Sunday-school exhibi 
 tion the children being asked, " What is the best book in 
 the world, next to the Bible," enthusiastically replied, 
 
134 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 " Longfellow s poems." The expression of popular judg 
 ment finds a ready response among many persons of all 
 ages : not only with those who delight in his numerous 
 short poems, but with those who dwell upon the exquisite 
 descriptions of Evangeline, or who enjoy the marvelous 
 translation of the " Divine Comedy." He has touched 
 nothing which he has not adorned. While immortal 
 izing scenes in his own country, he has gathered green 
 wreaths of fame from the mountains of Switzerland and 
 the valleys of the Rhine ; and painting with Homeric 
 melody the homely features of Acadian life, he has ren 
 dered classic the hospitable shores and primeval forests 
 of Nova Scotia. Who has given to the world so many 
 lines of poetic beauty and refined tenderness of feeling, 
 and yet with such simplicity of style that they have 
 become as familiar as household words ? Into how 
 many saddened hearts have they not proved consolation ? 
 How many mourning eyes have not looked up with a 
 brightening hope from the pages in which he has written 
 such hymns of resignation ? " It is pleasant to re 
 member," says a recent writer, " that in all the variety 
 of subjects, events, and emotions that Mr. Longfellow 
 has treated with the poet s grace and art there is not 
 one mean sentiment or base word. Nobody has been 
 misled by him into idleness, or license, or low pleasure ; 
 no one has had his mind debased by any verse that 
 Mr. Longfellow ever wrote." There is 
 
 " Not one immoral, one corrupted thought, 
 
 One line which, dying, he could wish to blot." 
 His great influence has always been for good ; he has 
 promoted health of mind and spirit, and has labored in 
 
SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 135 
 
 his serene way for the well-being and well-doing of his 
 race. 
 
 " Some suck up poison from a sorrow s core, 
 As naught but night-shade grew upon earth s ground ; 
 Love turned all his to heart s-ease, and the more 
 Fate tried his bastions, she but found a door 
 Leading to sweeter manhood and more sound." 
 
 The world offers no record of a poet s life and work 
 lovelier than that of Mr. Longfellow. 
 
 " Blessings be with him, and eternal praise, 
 Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares ; 
 The poets who on earth have made us heirs 
 Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OP THE SOCIETY AT ITS 
 SPRING MEETING. 
 
 PORTLAND, MAY 25, 1882. 
 
PEOCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY AT ITS 
 SPKING MEETING. 
 
 AT the meeting of the Maine Historical Society, 
 held in Portland, May 25, 1882, George F. Tal- 
 bot, Esq., presented the following resolutions com 
 memorative of the poet Longfellow, which were 
 adopted and ordered to be recorded : 
 
 Resolved, That the Maine Historical Society, honored 
 in counting among its members the illustrious poet, 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, lately deceased, desire to 
 join their fellow countrymen everywhere in paying their 
 tribute of gratitude and admiration for those productions 
 of his genius which have made his name immortal. 
 
 Resolved, That while death has removed from associa 
 tion with living men his revered presence, and, so far as 
 can be seen, has arrested that assiduous labor which has 
 so enriched the pages of permanent literature, it has ex 
 tended his fame, and brought to millions who had not 
 known him an appreciation of the nobility of his nature 
 and the purity of his life. 
 
 Resolved, That the society whose office it is to cherish 
 the memory of the men of Maine who in literature, 
 
140 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 science, politics, war, business enterprise, and the inven 
 tive arts have shed lustre upon our history, acknowledge 
 the indebtedness of our citizens to Longfellow for the 
 honor his long and brilliant career in the highest depart 
 ments of creative art has conferred upon our country, and 
 especially upon our State that gave him birth. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary be requested to com 
 municate, with a copy of these resolutions, the respectful 
 sympathy of this society to the family of the distin 
 guished deceased. 
 
 The following communication was received from 
 the Hon. James W. Bradbury, the President of 
 the Society, and read by the Secretary : 
 
 Since the meeting of the Maine Historical So 
 ciety on the 27th of last February, in honor of 
 Longfellow, that great poet has ceased to live on 
 earth except in history and in the hearts of the 
 lovers of pure literature throughout the world. 
 
 It was appropriate that this society, of which he 
 was a member, should hold that meeting. It was 
 the seventy-fifth anniversary of his birth. He was 
 invited to attend, but was compelled by ill health 
 to decline the invitation in one of the last letters 
 he probably ever wrote. It was in the city in 
 which he was born and reared and prepared for 
 college. It was in the State in whose oldest col 
 lege he received his collegiate education, the 
 State of which his ancestors were distinguished 
 
/AT ME MORI AM. 141 
 
 citizens, in which his parents were born and lived 
 and died. By ancestry, by birth, by education, 
 he belongs to Maine. She can justly boast that 
 she has given to the world the most illustrious 
 poet of the age. Genius consecrates the place of 
 its nativity. Seven cities contended for the honor 
 of having been the birthplace of Homer after he 
 was dead, who while living was allowed to wander 
 in poverty through their streets. It would have 
 been a reproach to the Historical Society of the 
 State to have passed such an occasion unnoticed. 
 
 The services of that meeting were appropriate 
 and interesting, and I deeply regretted my in 
 ability to be present. Everything that has rela 
 tion to a historical personage, and especially to 
 one who has secured such a hold upon the heart 
 of the public as Longfellow, becomes a matter of 
 general interest. I was exceedingly gratified by 
 the perusal of the papers read on that occasion. 
 The introductory address by Judge Barrows, the 
 early reminiscences by Professor Packard, the his 
 tory of the Longfellow family by the Kev. H. S. 
 Burrage, the history of the Wadsworth family, 
 the poet s maternal ancestors, by the Hon. Wil 
 liam Goold, the history of Portland in his early 
 days by Edward H. Elwell, and the elaborate 
 paper upon his writings by Mr. Talbot, are all 
 worthy of preservation and publication. 
 
142 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 I have been requested to give some account of 
 my early recollections of Longfellow. I can add 
 very little to what I communicated to the Society 
 on a former occasion. 
 
 I met him for the first time in the autumn of 
 1822, when I entered as Sophomore the class of 
 which he was a member. As we both had our 
 rooms out of college and in the same vicinity, we 
 were often together in passing to and from the 
 recitation room, and became well acquainted. He 
 was genial, sociable, and agreeable, and always a 
 gentleman in his deportment. Not meditative and 
 shy, like his subsequently distinguished classmate 
 Hawthorne, he was uniformly cheerful. He had 
 a happy temperament, free from all envy and 
 every corroding passion or vice. 
 
 In personal appearance, according to my present 
 recollection of him as I recall the scenes of those 
 early days, his figure was slight and erect ; his 
 complexion light and delicate as a maiden s, with 
 a slight bloom upon the cheek; his nose rather 
 prominent ; his eyes clear and blue ; and his well- 
 formed head covered with a profusion of light 
 brown hair, waving loosely in the same manner 
 as the gray locks of age. I have seen a portrait 
 in his parlor in Cambridge that gives a good idea 
 of him in his early life as I remember him. 
 
 While he was understood in college to be a gen- 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 143 
 
 eral reader, and more especially devoted to the 
 Muses, he never allowed himself to come to the 
 recitation room without thorough preparation. I 
 have some knowledge that he found more diffi 
 culty in mastering the hard problems in the higher 
 branches of mathematics than he did in any of 
 his other studies; but his purpose was never to 
 fail. His class was one in which there was a large 
 amount of ambition and an intense struggle for 
 rank in scholarship. In this class, Longfellow 
 stood justly amongst the first. At Commencement 
 he was assigned one of the three English orations ; 
 the valedictory, being the highest in rank, was 
 received by his older and able scholarly classmate, 
 Little. Gorham Deane, a young man of the most 
 remarkable metaphysical powers I have ever 
 known for one of his age, died before the Com 
 mencement. I have recently seen a letter from 
 President Allen to his father, written after his 
 death, saying that he ranked second in his class. 
 
 In that small recitation room we had Longfel 
 low and Hawthorne and Cilley and Little and 
 Abbott and Cheever sitting side by side. 
 
 The curriculum of studies in Bowdoin College 
 was at that time much more restricted than is 
 found in our colleges at the present day. But the 
 instruction was directed and calculated to teach 
 the student to use his own mental powers rather 
 
144 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 than to crowd the memory with the learning of 
 others, to teach him to think, and think upon 
 his feet rather than to store up what other men 
 had thought. We had, too, such instructors as 
 Cleaveland, Upham, Newman, and Packard, and 
 the classes were brought into immediate contact 
 with such minds, instead of being turned over to 
 young tutors for that which is most essential in 
 college training. Our most distinguished citizens 
 were intensely loyal to the State and its literary 
 institutions, and gave such encouragement to our 
 colleges as to command for them the confidence of 
 the public within and beyond our borders. We 
 had in our class the sons of Judge Bridge, Simon 
 Greenleaf, Stephen Longfellow, Jeremiah Mason, 
 Chief Justice Mellen, and Commodore Preble; 
 and in the preceding class were Franklin Pierce, 
 William Pitt Fessenden, and Calvin E. Stowe. 
 
 The year following his graduation, Longfellow 
 accepted a professorship of modern languages, in 
 which, by his careful and thorough preparation at 
 home and abroad, he sustained the high character 
 of which his early life gave assurance. 
 
 Some eight years ago I was travelling across 
 Nova Scotia from Halifax to Annapolis. At Wind 
 sor a gentleman joined me in the cars, who soon 
 engaged in conversation about the old Acadian 
 settlement that was so cruelly dispersed by the 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 145 
 
 * 
 
 English authorities. He designated the site of the 
 old church into which the Acadians were crowded, 
 and from which they were taken to be scattered 
 and severed without regard to family ties ; and 
 pointed out Grand Pre, where they farmed. He 
 soon spoke of Longfellow s " Evangeline." He 
 said that the character that Longfellow gave the 
 Acadians was literally true ; there was no poetic 
 exaggeration about it. He was so enthusiastic 
 over Longfellow that it was difficult to determine 
 which he admired most, the Acadians or the poem. 
 We concluded that he was a descendant of some 
 of the few who escaped the dispersion. 
 
 It was with reluctance that Longfellow consent 
 ed to deliver his " Morituri Salutamus" address be 
 fore the Alumni, on the fiftieth anniversary of his 
 graduation. I had applied to him personally, two 
 or three years previous, to meet the survivors of 
 his class at Commencement ; but he told me there 
 had been so many changes since his residence at 
 Brunswick that he feared the effect upon him of 
 revisiting those scenes. We renewed the effort in 
 1875, and obtained the assurance, through the per 
 sistent efforts of Mr. Benson, that all the survivors 
 would be present, and Longfellow finally consented 
 to come and Deliver a poem. I called upon him 
 in May. His health was impaired ; but he told 
 me he had prepared his poem, and hoped that he 
 10 
 
146 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 should be able to be present and read it at the 
 time appointed. 
 
 The announcement that Longfellow was to be 
 present and deliver a poem before the Alumni the 
 day preceding Commencement, brought together 
 at Brunswick a large audience from all parts of 
 the State. When the day arrived, as soon as the 
 doors of the large church were opened, the house 
 was literally jammed, and every space for sitting 
 and standing was filled. The survivors of the 
 class, eleven in number (two having been accident 
 ally prevented from being present), who had been 
 graduated fifty years before, with their venerable 
 instructor at their head, were seated upon the 
 stage to the left of the speaker, when Longfellow, 
 after the impressive introductory services, arose, 
 and in his modest and graceful manner read that 
 poetic address of which Virgil might have felt 
 proud, "Morituri Salutamus." The audience was 
 delighted. 
 
 His feeling allusion to his old instructors and to 
 Professor Packard touched the deepest sensibilities 
 of his hearers : 
 
 " They are no longer here ; they are all gone 
 Into the land of shadows, all save one. 
 Honor and reverence, and the good repute 
 That follows faithful service as its fruit, 
 Be unto him, whom living we salute." 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 147 
 
 When the great poet turned and gracefully 
 bowed his salutation to his aged and venerable, 
 yet fresh and elegant instructor, the whole audi 
 ence was moved with emotion. 
 
 As soon as the applause that followed the con 
 clusion of the address would permit, it devolved 
 upon me to offer a vote of thanks, and I pro 
 posed that the thanks of the Alumni be tendered 
 to Mr. Longfellow for his eloquent poetic address, 
 and the thanks of the college and its friends that 
 the most illustrious American poet had brought 
 the laurels nobly won in the Old World and the 
 New, and gracefully placed them upon the brow 
 of his Alma Mater. The president of the Alumni, 
 on putting the vote, said to the audience that in 
 the republic of letters the ladies can vote, and 
 those in favor of the resolution would manifest 
 it by rising. Instantly the whole audience were 
 upon their feet, and the poet received such an 
 ovation of applause as can never be forgotten by 
 those who witnessed it. 
 
 Dr. Cheever delivered an oration on the occa 
 sion, which was characterized by his usual great 
 learning and ability. At the Commencement din 
 ner, Mr. Abbott gave a history of all the deceased 
 members of the class of 1825, which was written 
 in his accustomed felicitous style, and in which he 
 rigidly adhered to the maxim, " De mortuis nil 
 
148 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 nisi bonum." In the evening a large company, 
 embracing many distinguished persons, met Long 
 fellow at the hospitable mansion of Professor 
 Packard, when he received cordial greetings from 
 friends from every part of the State. On the fol 
 lowing morning we assembled around the historic 
 tree, and repaired thence to a room in the college, 
 and after a most impressive prayer by the good 
 Dr. Shepley we parted. In letters subsequently 
 received from Longfellow he spoke of his visit 
 to Brunswick and meeting so many of his old col 
 lege friends. I saw him in 1877, when he alluded 
 to this visit with evident satisfaction. 
 
 It was my intention to speak of the character of 
 the writings of Longfellow, but that subject is too 
 broad for casual remarks, and sudden illness has 
 deprived me of the power of making any prepara 
 tion. I must therefore dismiss it with the single 
 allusion to his good fortune as an author. He 
 must be ranked as the most fortunate of authors, 
 with hardly a parallel in history. His genius 
 brought him fame and competence early in life, 
 and he lived long to enjoy both, unclouded by any 
 feeling of envy toward his distinguished contem 
 poraries. He could enjoy the fame of Bryant and 
 Whittier and Tennyson, as if it were a tribute to 
 the work in which he and they were alike en 
 gaged. But for the sad domestic calamity that 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 149 
 
 befell him, his lot in life would seem to have been 
 too happy for mortals here. 
 
 Mr. Hubbard Winslow Bryant, the Librarian 
 and Secretary of the Society, then offered the fol 
 lowing : 
 
 I desire to lay a wreath on the tomb of our be 
 loved poet, and to testify with others to his endear 
 ing qualities. I have had the honor of his friend 
 ship for several years, and it was rny privilege to 
 be useful to him occasionally as a book-hunter. I 
 first called his attention to the little pamphlet, the 
 Fourth of July oration delivered by his honored 
 father, Esquire Longfellow, in 1804, which he had 
 never before seen. I procured for him, also, at 
 different times, some of the early writings of our 
 American authors. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow liked much to examine collec 
 tions of odds and ends in literature. It was a 
 pleasure to him to chance upon some little book of 
 poems or fiction that had been printed, forgotten, 
 and finally brought to the light again. After the 
 removal of our library to this city he wrote, con 
 gratulating us upon it, and expressing his best 
 wishes for our prosperity. When visiting here in 
 August last he passed an hour or two in our library, 
 examining the shelves and cabinet with evident 
 
150 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 satisfaction. He presented us with the moccasins 
 worn by the Sioux warrior, Rain-in-the-Face, who 
 killed General Ouster. They were sent to him by 
 General Miles in acknowledgment of Longfellow s 
 poem, " The Revenge of Rain-in-the Face : " 
 
 " In that desolate land and lone, 
 Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone 
 
 Roar down their mountain path, 
 By their fires the Sioux Chiefs 
 Muttered their woes and griefs 
 And the menace of their wrath." 
 
 They are accompanied by the photograph of the 
 Indian chief, who has rather an amiable counte 
 nance. His name was evidently given him on ac 
 count of a line of dots or raindrops on his left 
 cheek. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow s taste in the printing and illus 
 tration of books was superlative. The early num 
 bers of " Outre-Mer," printed under his personal 
 supervision at Brunswick, are very handsome ; he 
 loved to see " a rivulet of text running through 
 a meadow of margin." 
 
 At his request I made search for the date of 
 the storm which inspired his " Wreck of the Hes 
 perus," and found that it occurred on Sunday, 
 15th December, 1839. It was a local storm, 
 which spent its force in Massachusetts Bay. The 
 fishermen at anchor in Gloucester harbor suffered 
 
IN ME MORI AM. 151 
 
 most ; some fifty lives were lost. The schooner 
 Hesperus hailed from Gardiner, Maine. 
 
 When Professor Longfellow was here last sum 
 mer he intimated that he possessed an invaluable 
 relic in a lock of Washington s hair, which he 
 would some day present to our Society. I am au 
 thorized by his son, Mr. Ernest W. Longfellow, to 
 state that this precious relic will be presented to 
 us on some future occasion. 
 
 Longfellow s first printed poem is believed to 
 be a ballad on the subject of Lovewell s Fight. 
 This we have searched for, but as yet in vain. I 
 believe that it contains these lines, but it is pos 
 sible they may be from some other author, as 
 there have been a number of ballads on the same 
 theme : 
 
 " I 11 kill you, Chamberlain, said he, 
 And scalp you when you re dead." 
 
 It was probably printed between the years 
 1823 and 1825, and perhaps in some weekly paper 
 that had a short life. 
 
 A friend has kindly called my attention to an 
 ode by Longfellow on the same subject, which 
 appeared in the " Gazette of Maine " for May 24, 
 1825: 
 
152 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 THE COMMEMORATION AT FRYEBURG. 
 
 The following ode was written for the occasion by 
 Mr. H. W. Longfellow, of Bowdoin College : 
 
 ODE. 
 
 Air Bruce s Address. 
 
 I. 
 
 Many a day and wasted year 
 Bright has left its footsteps here, 
 Since was broken the warrior s spear, 
 
 And our fathers bled. 
 Still the tall trees, arching, shake 
 Where the fleet deer by the lake, 
 As he dash d through birch and brake, 
 
 From the hunter fled. 
 
 IT. 
 
 In these ancient woods so bright, 
 That are full of life and light, 
 Many a dark, mysterious rite 
 
 The stern warriors kept. 
 But their altars are bereft, 
 Fall n to earth, and strewn and cleft, 
 And a holier faith is left 
 
 Where their fathers slept. 
 
 in. 
 
 From their ancient sepulchres, 
 Where amid the giant firs, 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 153 
 
 Moaning loud, the high wind stirs, 
 
 Have the red men gone. 
 Tow rd the setting sun that makes 
 Bright our western hills and lakes, 
 Faint and few, the remnant takes 
 
 Its sad journey on. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Where the Indian hamlet stood, 
 In the interminable wood, 
 Battle broke the solitude, 
 
 And the war-cry rose ; 
 Sudden came the straggling shot 
 Where the sun looked on the spot 
 That the trace of war would blot 
 
 Ere the day s faint close. 
 
 v. 
 
 Low the smoke of battle hung ; 
 Heavy down the lake it swung, 
 Till the death wail loud was sung 
 
 When the night shades fell ; 
 And the green pine, waving dark, 
 Held within its shattered bark 
 Many a lasting scathe and mark, 
 
 That a tale could tell. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And the story of that day 
 Shall not pass from earth away, 
 
154 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Nor the blighting of decay 
 
 Waste our liberty ; 
 But within the river s sweep 
 Long in peace our vale shall sleep, 
 And free hearts the record keep 
 
 Of this jubilee. 
 
 Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr., said that at a re 
 cent meeting of some of our citizens the question 
 of erecting a monument in Portland to the mem 
 ory of the poet had been considered and he 
 thought it would be fitting for this Society to 
 unite with the people of the city in such measures 
 as they might in common agree upon, to carry 
 such a purpose into effect, showing thereby that 
 not his native city only, but his native State as 
 well, desires to have part in a work so honorable 
 to both as this would be. 
 
 The most illustrious of all the sons of Maine, 
 Longfellow did not need the monument. His 
 fame was already assured, not in this country 
 alone, but in every civilized land on the globe. 
 His genius required no such voucher. Genius 
 had, indeed, many definitions, he would not 
 stop to analyze or describe them, and Longfel 
 low would not come within them all ; but he did 
 not doubt that in those which were plainest and 
 most universally accepted, and such as best dis 
 tinguished the immortal poets of all ages, God s 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 155 
 
 great, like Shakespeare and Burns, he would be 
 easily included ; for, like them, he sang of man and 
 of life of their nearest, deepest, and highest re 
 lations in words that the world could not choose 
 but hear, and would never forget. How many of 
 his lines were mottoes of the heart ! How many 
 passages of his verse lifted the mind to its highest 
 moods ! He was nature s simplest and truest 
 bard ; no unintelligible metaphysician nor " howl 
 ing dervish " of song, and yet how full his poems 
 were of deep philosophy ! True, it was philoso 
 phy which men did not stare at or worry them 
 selves to find out ; for his stream was clear, not 
 because it was shallow, but because, while deep, 
 it was not turbid. 
 
 But his genius was most distinguished in the 
 highest things, in the true expression of all that 
 was pure and sweet, honest and of good report, of 
 what was gentlest yet strongest, most human yet 
 the most divine. And no man had such a genius in 
 the art, so to speak, of being a gentleman. Only 
 Emerson came near him. His native State would 
 do herself a kindness, he said, by thus testifying 
 to her appreciation of the genius of her great 
 son, and by cherishing his memory. And this 
 Society should hold up his example and his works 
 for the benefit of the people of the State, the 
 men, women, and children of the present age and 
 
156 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 of the ages which are to come. In no way could 
 it better do its best work, or make a more lasting 
 claim upon the gratitude of the future. 
 
 On motion, it was voted to adopt and publish 
 in the proceedings of this Society at the meeting 
 to celebrate the seventy-fifth birthday of the poet 
 Longfellow the addresses delivered at the memo 
 rial service held in the First Parish Church, Port 
 land, Sunday evening, April 2, 1882, by the pastor, 
 the Kev. Thomas Hill, D. D., the Rev. Asa Dalton, 
 and the Hon. Joseph W. Symonds. 
 
REV. DR. HILL S ADDRESS. 
 
 THE four elements, talent, fortune, industry, and 
 inspiration, which must combine to produce the 
 highest success in life were all conspicuous in 
 the poet whom our city delights to claim and to 
 honor. The inheritor, or at least the recipient 
 from nature, of fine powers, he had favorable op 
 portunities for cultivating and developing them ; 
 but, what is far more important, he opened his 
 heart devoutly and reverently to holy influences, 
 and gave himself with steadfast, conscientious in 
 dustry to the improvement of his opportunities, 
 and to the exercise of his powers. To such a man 
 all circumstances become, as it were, favorable ; 
 he is, in great measure, independent of fortune ; 
 he increases his native talent ; and he insures the 
 cooperation of that Inspiring Presence which is al 
 ways ready to enter the heart opened to receive it. 
 
 It is this peculiar moral nobility which has given 
 our poet so strong a hold on the affection and re 
 spect of all who know him, either personally or 
 by report and tradition. His seniors and equals 
 in age bear testimony that from his, boyhood he 
 
158 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 held to his earnest purposes ; he left nothing be 
 hind him to be regretted, nothing to be covered 
 with a veil. The devout solemnity of that early 
 Psalm, 
 
 " Life is real ! Life is earnest ! " 
 
 was nothing assumed or put on ; it was no surface 
 emotion, expending itself in words ; it was a deep, 
 inward choice of the way of duty, manifesting it 
 self in a course of steadfast fidelity to the precepts 
 of Jesus, from his youth to his old age. Duty is 
 not satisfied with professions or with promises; 
 it demands an unconditional, total surrender of the 
 whole man and the whole life to the eternal prin 
 ciples of piety, righteousness, and love. To this 
 demand he unceasingly yielded his reverent obe 
 dience. It seemed as though he had secretly said 
 to himself, 
 
 " That I am true my life alone can show ; 
 My words are all unequal to the task." 
 
 All that is told us of his .private life confirms us in 
 this view of the practical reality of his religion ; 
 and all his published writings bear witness to it. 
 It is not simply their innocence, the absence of 
 lines which on his death-bed he might wish to 
 erase ; it is the unconscious betrayal, in every part, 
 of the writer s own moral earnestness. The deep 
 est fountains of his heart were opened early, by 
 great sorrows ; but the streams which issued were 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 159 
 
 clear and life-giving. The flow often begins from 
 a vein of sadness, but it never degenerates into 
 melancholy ; and almost invariably ends with 
 hope, faith, and charity. Those blessed Christian 
 graces were the characteristics of his soul. 
 
 And it was this moral earnestness which (in 
 combination with his sweet, courteous dignity and 
 his exceptionally high attainments as a scholar 
 and achievements as a writer) made him so valua 
 ble as a teacher; first in his Alma Mater, and 
 afterwards in the chair at Cambridge, where his 
 services and fame outshone the glory of his re 
 markable predecessor and of his highly gifted suc 
 cessor. The young men who met him were as 
 much impressed and inspired by the moral influ 
 ences which flowed unconsciously from his pres 
 ence as by the direct teaching in his class-room. 
 No wonder that the Alumni of both institutions 
 have desired to take part in these solemn services 
 of thanksgiving for his life and labors, and for 
 the inspiration which has left us such valuable 
 fruits, for our inheritance and that of our chil 
 dren. For, through the grace that was given him, 
 he has left a precious legacy to many succeeding 
 generations. 
 
JUDGE SYMONDS ADDRESS. 
 
 IT has fallen to me somewhat suddenly to take 
 a brief part in this memorial service, speaking 
 for the resident Alumni of Bowdoin. 
 
 It would perhaps be strange if the Alumni of 
 the college in which the intellectual life of Long 
 fellow began, " and to which his name imparts 
 charm and illustration/ were to remain in willing 
 silence among those who are met in memory of 
 the most illustrious of her sons, standing as it 
 were just within the sudden darkness which has 
 followed the sunset of his life. And yet, what is 
 there for them to do ; what is there for the 
 college to do now, with a heart brimming with 
 proud and grateful emotions, better than to sit 
 down in her sorrow for the dead, and to offer the 
 golden tribute of silence, of gratitude and thanks, 
 for the life that has closed, for the peerless and 
 priceless legacy his genius and fame have left to 
 her. 
 
 To the graduates of Bowdoin (as of other col 
 leges), who sometimes in later life go back in a sort 
 of enchantment of memory and the imagination 
 
IN MEMOR1AM. 161 
 
 to the pleasant years passed there, to some of 
 them, at least, there is always a halo about the col 
 lege. There are other associations, too, connected 
 with it, of more or less interest to all. But that 
 Longfellow and Hawthorne, Hawthorne, whose 
 genius Longfellow was among the first to recog 
 nize, sending a ray of joy and sunlight into the 
 darkness of his long seclusion by that kindly and 
 appreciative notice of the " Twice-Told Tales," in 
 the "North American Review" in 1837, that 
 the footsteps of these two men, in youth and early 
 manhood, were accustomed to loiter there, these 
 are associations which will linger imperishably, 
 growing richer and stronger as something of the 
 interest and charm of antiquity shall gather about 
 the college. It is not for me to speak in fitting 
 terms of Longfellow s poetry, of its manifold and 
 exceeding beauty, in spirit, in substance and form, 
 or of the marvels of his achievement. His poems 
 seem to me to be the best life, the highest and 
 purest aspiration, the graceful and strong expres 
 sion of a serene and noble mind. We read them, 
 and all common things appear in a finer light. 
 There is a new beauty in human life, a new glory 
 on the earth and in the heavens. The round of 
 daily duties is no longer sordid or dull. The op 
 portunity, the possibility for ourselves, whatever 
 
 it may be, we learn to set a new value upon it, 
 11 
 
162 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 to estimate it at its best, perhaps to prize it above 
 gold. 
 
 One of the fragments which remain of the 
 Twelve Tables of the Eoman law provides that 
 those qualities by which the heroes were deified, 
 virtue, piety, fidelity, shall be ranked among the 
 divinities. Temples shall be erected to them. But 
 let no worship ever be paid to any vice. The 
 pristine Roman vigor and purity are in that law. 
 But the altars to these same divinities are sacred 
 still in Longfellow s verse, and a holier fire burns 
 upon them forever. 
 
 What an assured immortality of fame is his! 
 His works are already the inheritance of the whole 
 earth. Transcending the boundaries of nations, 
 they have become the common property of man 
 kind ; common as the light of day is common, or 
 the glory of the sunset, or the stars at night. His 
 is the life of books, the long life of the best 
 books; and that is immortality. 
 
 " How instantly the air will close on this arrowy 
 path ! " once Eufus Choate exclaimed, alluding to 
 his own professional career, brilliant as it was. 
 And in his beautiful journal of travel he writes, 
 66 Some memorial I would leave yet, rescued from 
 the grave of a mere professional man, some 
 wise, or beautiful, or interesting page. After all, a 
 book is the only immortality." 
 
IN MEMOPJAM. 163 
 
 " It is only letters/ said Lord Bacon, " which, 
 as ships, pass through the vast sea of time." 
 
 Something of the subtle quality of eloquence is 
 born of the moment and expires with it. Part of 
 the great occasion, it cannot be reproduced. Of 
 those arts imperial, by which in great crises the 
 emotions of the hour and the judgments of men 
 are swayed by public speaking, only the great 
 myth can be transmitted to posterity. 
 
 I am reminded of the language of an author, by 
 whom this contrast has been strikingly painted. 
 He says, " The written outlives and outdazzles 
 the spoken word. The life of rhetoric perishes 
 with the rhetorician. . . . The bows of eloquence 
 are buried with the archers. Where is the splen 
 did declamation of Bolingbroke ? It has vanished, 
 like his own image from the grass-plots of Twick 
 enham. 
 
 " Literature is the immortality of speech. It em 
 balms for all ages the departed kings of learning, 
 and watches over their repose in the eternal pyra 
 mids of fame. The sumptuous cities which have 
 lighted the world since the beginning of time are 
 now beheld only in the pictures of the historian 
 or the poet. Homer rebuilds Troy, and Thucyd- 
 ides renews the war of Peloponnesus. The dart 
 that pierced the Persian breastplate moulders in 
 the dust of Marathon ; but the arrow of Pindar 
 quivers, at this hour, with the life of his bow." 
 
164 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Two thousand years and more ago, twenty-four 
 centuries ago, and the arrow of Pindar still quiv 
 ers with the life of his bow. 
 
 It will be well for the world, for the happiness 
 and nobility of mankind, if the costly grace and 
 spiritual beauty of Longfellow s poetry shall con 
 tinue to be familiar as household words, two thou 
 sand years to come ; yes, when lights of empire 
 have died out, " like embers on a cottager s 
 hearth." 
 
REV. MR. DALTON S ADDRESS. 
 
 THE ancients regarded the city of a man s birth 
 as his mother, whom he was bound to love, serve, 
 and obey by his life and his works. As such, the 
 city claimed the right to award him suitable hon 
 ors while he lived, and to pronounce his final eu 
 logy immediately after death. This custom was 
 honored by careful observance, and was believed 
 to be due equally to the departed and to his 
 surviving friends and fellow citizens. To the de 
 parted, it was a tribute of love and gratitude, mer 
 ited by the services he had rendered his native 
 city in its corporate capacity, as well as to the in 
 dividual citizens. To his fellow citizens, it was also 
 an indirect but efficient call to follow in his steps, 
 at least in intent and spirit, so far as possible, by 
 emulating his example of well-doing, and striving 
 to excel in their several conditions and callings. 
 
 And such is the occasion of our meeting to 
 night, and of this memorial service. Portland 
 claims the great poet whom we have lost as the 
 brightest and best of all her sons. The city was 
 proud of him and loved him while he lived, and 
 
166 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 now that he is dead she is, after his immediate 
 family, the chief mourner at his grave, and most 
 deeply feels of how great a son she is bereaved. 
 His name and fame are indissolubly connected 
 with this city by the sea. And Portland s mother- 
 heart will not rest satisfied until she erect in " The 
 Oaks " an enduring monument to his memory, 
 a statue of the poet, by which his form and 
 features may be familiar to future generations. 
 
 Longfellow s life divides itself into three parts : 
 his youth and early manhood till he was thirty 
 years of age, a period of preparation and constant 
 improvement; his ripe manhood, from thirty to 
 sixty, a period of active labor, when his best work 
 was done ; and from sixty to seventy-five, a period 
 of calm repose and advancing old age, when he 
 was the object of his countrymen s warm admira 
 tion and affection. He was about forty, in the 
 prime of manhood, when the speaker knew him in 
 college, where he was at the head of the depart 
 ment of Modern Languages and Literature, direct 
 ing the teachers of French, German, Italian, and 
 Spanish, and occasionally himself teaching all these 
 classes, to the great gratification of the students. 
 
 James Russell Lowell, the successor of Long 
 fellow at Harvard, once said to Dr. Hill, that, for 
 his part, he still held to the Ptolemaic system, in 
 asmuch as it makes the earth the centre of the 
 
IN MEMOR1AM. 167 
 
 universe, and man the chief of God s works, a 
 sentiment which science goes far to confirm, as 
 Lowell meant it. Our little planet seems to offer 
 the most favorable conditions for the highest 
 forms of life and the highest type of beings. 
 And as man is the chief end of creation, so the 
 poet is the highest type of man, rarer in his ap 
 pearance among men, and essaying a higher flight 
 than his fellows. 
 
 Literature in general must be preferred even to 
 science, for the same reason, namely, because its 
 province is human life with its possibilities. Lit 
 erature is the sum and substance of human life 
 in all its aspects, expressed and perpetuated in 
 " thoughts that breathe and words that burn." 
 It includes all that is thrilling in eloquence, 
 profound in philosophy, permanent in morality, 
 and instructive in history, no less than the charms 
 of poetry, the strange in romance, the mirthful 
 in comedy, and the terrible in tragedy. Great and 
 noble thoughts, clearly enunciated and adorned 
 by graceful and varied imagery, are the highest 
 style of literature, and constitute true and per 
 manent poetry. Philosophers, divines, historians 
 and orators have made mankind their debtors by 
 masterpieces of eloquence, but not in the same 
 degree as the great poets, ancient and modern. 
 The form at least of philosophy, theology, history, 
 
168 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 and oratory, changes from age to age. But poetry 
 is a perennial spring whose waters never fail to 
 quench the thirst of the soul. Homer, Sophocles, 
 Virgil, Horace, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Words 
 worth, are as fresh and refreshing to-day as in 
 the ages which first listened to the music of their 
 verse. To hold communion with these great sing 
 ers through their masterpieces is the privilege of 
 all, and is possible to all. By doing so the taste 
 is refined, the heart purified, the imagination ex 
 alted, and the whole man lifted to a higher plane 
 of feeling, thinking, and being. 
 
 And now what we claim for our Longfellow is, 
 that he belongs to this glorious band of immortal 
 bards, whose procession, as seen by Dante, he has 
 gone to join, and by whom, we doubt not, he has 
 been recognized, and received into their select so 
 ciety as one of themselves, " a brother beloved." 
 
 Intanto voce fu per me udita, 
 " Onorate 1 altissimo poeta." 
 
 If you ask us for the grounds of this belief, our 
 reply is that made to those who in St. Paul s ask 
 for the monument of Sir Christopher Wren : 
 Circumspice, " Look around you ; " and on every 
 side, all over the world, wherever the English 
 tongue is spoken, you will find ample proof that 
 Portland gave a true poet to the world in Henry 
 Wadsworth Longfellow. 
 
IN ME MORI AM. 169 
 
 More read in England than their own Laureate, 
 in this country he is facile princeps. Not that we 
 would disparage Bryant, whom also we have lost, 
 or Whittier, who still lives to sing the ballads of 
 New England as they should be sung, in a manner 
 all his own, and with a tenderness and pathos 
 which find a response in every New England heart. 
 Whittier is racy of the soil, to the manor born ; 
 no " travelled man," not " having seen many lands 
 or men of diverse manners," but a poet of home 
 like aptitude, tastes, and sympathies. Longfellow 
 loved New England no less, but his culture car 
 ried his thought into all lands and literatures, 
 from which he derived treasures to adorn his own 
 verse and enrich and ennoble the minds of his 
 readers. 
 
 The influence of the great German poets in par 
 ticular is easily discernible in his youthful rhymes, 
 more especially that of Uhland, whom he emulated 
 and finally surpassed. 
 
 But he lived to have a manner all his own, for 
 which he was indebted to no one, a manner and 
 a style which, in inferior hands, quickly degener 
 ated into mannerism, giving us " the contortions 
 of the prophet without his inspiration." 
 
 His genius, like that of his friend and contempo 
 rary, Tennyson, is lyrical rather than dramatic or 
 epic, and this lyrical genius has entered into the 
 
170 HENRY WADSWOETH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 emotions, the aspirations, the thoughts, the life, of 
 English-speaking people all over the world. 
 
 If we compare Longfellow with the most illus 
 trious of his contemporaries and personal friends, 
 he will lose nothing by the comparison. It was 
 his good fortune to number among his friends 
 such men as Everett, Sumner, Felton, Walker, 
 Holmes, Bryant, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, and 
 Winthrop. He equalled Everett in elegance, and 
 surpassed him in geniality of manners and gen 
 erosity of soul, that delicate and unfailing sympa 
 thy which greatly endeared him to " all sorts and 
 conditions of men." His tact was finer than Sum- 
 ner s, and his face, the index of his heart, as ra 
 diant as Felton s. He was as great a favorite as 
 Dr. Walker with Harvard students; and he shared 
 with Bryant and Whittier the admiration of his 
 countrymen, while the number of his English and 
 foreign admirers was far greater. 
 
 If asked to name the trait at once the most 
 characteristic of the poet and most worthy of our 
 commendation and emulation, we should instance 
 his industry, which was literally untiring. Only 
 those who knew him best, his own immediate 
 family and family connections, can fully appreciate 
 this point. But I doubt not that they will con 
 firm the statement that the poet s time and 
 strength were taxed to their utmost tension. He 
 
IN MEMOR1AM. 171 
 
 never knew what it was to lose a day, or waste an 
 hour in idleness. Even " the children s hour " was 
 no exception, as he must have felt while living, 
 and his children more amply understand now that 
 he is no longer with them as of old. Add to this 
 trait, his manly presence, fine countenance, speak 
 ing eye, genial smile, friendly, sympathetic voice, 
 and courteous address, and you have the outward 
 semblance of " the perfect man," whose mind was 
 a kingdom. 
 
 And if, as Pericles says, that " of good and great 
 men the w r hole earth is the sepulchre," because 
 their memory is a precious inheritance, which 
 should be guarded and preserved by all men, and 
 also because their thoughts and lives become at 
 death the common property of the world, then of 
 Longfellow, whose happiness it was in life to be 
 personally loved, and in death universally la 
 mented, we may truly say, 
 
 " He in our wonder and astonishment, 
 Has built himself a lifelong monument, 
 And there sepulchred in such pomp doth lie 
 That kings for such a tomb might wish to die. * 
 
LOAN DEPT. 
 
 irec d circ. MAR 1 1 1983 
 
 -50m-3 62