"THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS." in the church-yard at Cambridge under a freestone tablet, on which are sculptured the words Vas-sol, and the emblems a goblet and sun. He left a son John, who lived into Revolutionary times, and was a royalist, as many of the rich colonists were. The house passed from his hands (for a suitable consideration, let us hope) and came into the hands of the provincial government, who allotted it to General Washington as his head-quarters after the battle of Bunker Hill. Its next occupant was a certain Mr. Thomas Tracy, of whom tradition says that he was very rich, and that his servants drank his costly wines from carved pitchers. He appears to have sent out privateers to scour the seas in the East and West Indies, and to worry the commerce of England and Spain; though why he should include the galleons of Spain in his free-booting voyages is not clear. He failed one day and the hundred guests who had been accustomed to sit down at the banquets of Vassal house, were compelled to find other hosts. Bankrupt Tracy was succeeded by Andrew Craigie, apothecary-general of the northern provincial army, who amassed a fortune in that office, which fortune took to itself wings, though not before it had enlarged Vassal house, and built a bridge over the Charles River connecting Cambridge with Boston and still bearing his name. In the summer of 1837, a studious young gentleman of thirty might have been seen wending his way down the elm-shaded path which led to the Craigie house. He lifted the huge knocker, which fell with a brazen clang, and inquired for Mrs. Craigie. The parlor door was thrown open, and a tall, erect figure, crowned with a turban, stood before him. It was the relict of Andrew Craigie, whilom apothecary-general of the dead and gone northern provincial army. The young gentleman inquired if there was a room vacant in her house. 66 I lodge students no longer," she answered gravely. "But I am not a student," he remarked. "I am a professor in the University." "A professor?" she inquired, as if she associated learning with age. "Professor Longfellow," said the wouldbe lodger. "Ah! that is different. I will show you what there is." She then proceeded to show him several rooms, saying as she closed the door of each, "You cannot have that." At last she opened the door of the south-east corner room of the second story, and said that he could have it. "This was General Washington's chamber." So Professor Longfellow became a resident of this old historic house, which had been occupied before him by Edward Everett and Jared Sparks, and which was occupied with him by Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer. Truly, his lines had fallen in pleasant places. Professor Longfellow's collegiate duties left him leisure for literary pursuits, and he turned it to advantage by writing a paper on "Frithiof's Saga," and another on the "Twice-told Tales" of his fellow-collegian, Hawthorne, whose rare excellence he was among the first to perceive. These papers were published in the "North American Review," in 1837. They were followed during the next year by other papers: among them one on "Anglo-Saxon Literature," and another on "Paris in the Seventeenth Century," which were contributions to the same periodical. If they are good reading after the lapse of forty years, they must have been better reading when they were first published; for, without vaunting ourselves on our knowledge of other literatures than our own, Harvests," have disappeared from the later editions of Mr. Longfellow's works, and can very well be spared. The fruits of Mr. Longfellow's three years' residence in Europe were given to the world two years later. If Bryant had been unconsciously his model in his early poems he cannot be said to have had a model in "Outre-Mer." It has reminded certain English critics of Washington Irving, I fail to see in what respect. It is more scholarly than "The Sketch Book," and the style is sweeter and mellower than obtains in that famous collection of papers,-the writer warbling, like Sidney, in poetic prose. France receives the largest share of his attention and is most lovingly observed, partly for its old-fashioned picturesqueness, but more, I think, because it happened to hit his fancy. In the ninth chapter or section, which glances at "The Trouvères," we have the first French translations by Mr. Longfellow. One is a song in praise of "Spring" by Charles d'Orleans, the other is a copy of verses upon a sleeping child by Clotilde de Surville. They are elegantly translated but we feel in reading them that the subtle aroma of their originals has somehow escaped. They do not suggest the fifteenth but the nineteenth century. "Outre-Mer" is interesting to the student of American literature as an excellent exam A CORNER OF THE STUDY. ple of a kind of prose-half essay and half narrative-which ranks among the things that were. It could not flourish now, nor can it flourish hereafter, but it delighted a literate and sympathetic class of readers forty years ago to whom it was a pleasant revealment of Old World places, customs, stories and literatures. It was quietly humorous, it was prettily pathetic, and it was pensive and poetical. Sentimental readers were attracted to the little sketch of "Jacqueline," humorous readers to "Martin Franc and the Monk of Saint Anthony," and "The Notary of Périgueux," and literary readers to "The Trouvères," "Ancient Spanish Ballads," and "The Devotional Poetry of Spain." (The last paper, by the way, was a reprint of the introduction to the "Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique.") Writing in 1878, I cannot say that "OutreMer" is a remarkable book; but recalling what American literature was in 1835, I see that it was an important book then; that it deserved all the praise that it obtained; that it was thoroughly representative of the genius of its writer, and that it was indicative of his future career, which is plainly mapped out therein. The publication of " Outre-Mer," and his growing reputation as a poet, pointed out Mr. Longfellow as the successor of Mr. George Ticknor, who in 1835 resigned his professorship of modern languages and literature in Harvard College. He was elected to fill the place of the erudite historian of Spanish Literature, and resigning his chair at Brunswick, he went abroad a second time in order to complete his studies in the literature of Northern Europe. He remained abroad a little over a year, passing the summer in Denmark and Sweden and the autumn and winter in Germany. The sudden death of his wife at Rotterdam arrested his travel and his studies until the following spring and summer, which were spent in the Tyrol and Switzerland. He returned to the United States in November, 1836, and entered upon his duties at Cambridge, where he has ever since resided. Mr. Longfellow's house at Cambridge is one of the few American houses to which pilgrimages will be made in the future. It was surrounded with historic associations before he entered it, and it is now surrounded with poetic ones,-a double halo encircling its time-honored walls. It is supposed to have been built in the first half of the last century by Colonel John Vassal, who died in 1747, and whose ashes repose "THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS." in the church-yard at Cambridge under a freestone tablet, on which are sculptured the words Vas-sol, and the emblems a goblet and sun. He left a son John, who lived into Revolutionary times, and was a royalist, as many of the rich colonists were. The house passed from his hands (for a suitable consideration, let us hope) and came into the hands of the provincial government, who allotted it to General Washington as his head-quarters after the battle of Bunker Hill. Its next occupant was a certain Mr. Thomas Tracy, of whom tradition says that he was very rich, and that his servants drank his costly wines from carved pitchers. He appears to have sent out privateers to scour the seas in the East and West Indies, and to worry the commerce of England and Spain; though why he should include the galleons of Spain in his free-booting voyages is not clear. He failed one day and the hundred guests who had been accustomed to sit down at the banquets of Vassal house, were compelled to find other hosts. Bankrupt Tracy was succeeded by Andrew Craigie, apothecary-general of the northern provincial army, who amassed a fortune in that office, which fortune took to itself wings, though not before it had enlarged Vassal house, and built a bridge over the Charles River connecting Cambridge with Boston and still bearing his name. In the summer of 1837, a studious young gentleman of thirty might have been seen wending his way down the elm-shaded path which led to the Craigie house. He lifted the huge knocker, which fell with a brazen clang, and inquired for Mrs. Craigie. The parlor door was thrown open, and a tall, erect figure, crowned with a turban, stood before him. It was the relict of Andrew Craigie, whilom apothecary-general of the dead and gone northern provincial army. The young gentleman inquired if there was a room vacant in her house. "I lodge students no longer," she answered gravely. "But I am not a student," he remarked. "I am a professor in the University." "A professor ?" she inquired, as if she associated learning with age. "Professor Longfellow," said the wouldbe lodger. "Ah! that is different. I will show you what there is." She then proceeded to show him several rooms, saying as she closed the door of each, "You cannot have that." At last she opened the door of the south-east corner room of the second story, and said that he could have it. "This was General Washington's chamber." So Professor Longfellow became a resident of this old historic house, which had been occupied before him by Edward Everett and Jared Sparks, and which was occupied with him by Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer. Truly, his lines had fallen in pleasant places. Professor Longfellow's collegiate duties. left him leisure for literary pursuits, and he turned it to advantage by writing a paper on "Frithiof's Saga," and another on the "Twice-told Tales" of his fellow-collegian, Hawthorne, whose rare excellence he was among the first to perceive. These papers were published in the "North American Review," in 1837. They were followed during the next year by other papers: among them one on "Anglo-Saxon Literature," and another on "Paris in the Seventeenth Century," which were contributions to the same periodical. If they are good reading after the lapse of forty years, they must have been better reading when they were first published; for, without vaunting ourselves on our knowledge of other literatures than our own, THE REAR LAWN, LOOKING TOWARD LONGFELLOW'S HOUSE. (ALL THIS PART OF THE LAWN IS COVERED WITH GIGANTIC ELM-TREES. THE HOUSE IS NEARLY HIDDEN BY THE TREES AND LILAC BUSHES.) it is certain that our ancestors knew much less about them than we do; and it is equally certain, as we shall soon see, that our earliest knowledge of German literature-or, at any rate, of German poetry-is largely due to the writings of Mr. Longfellow. His first volume introduced his countrymen to Spanish poetry, as represented by Don Jorge Manrique, Lope de Vega, Francisco de Aldana, and Francisco de Medrano. "Outre-Mer" introduced them to French poetry, in the paper on "The Trouvères," and to ancient Spanish ballads in the paper on that subject. Bryant had perhaps preceded him as a translator from the Spanish poets; but his translations were not of a kind to be popular. The papers that I have mentioned, or some of them, were written in the chamber which Washington had occupied, as well as a series of papers of which European travel in Germany and Switzerland, and European experience and legend, were the chief themes. Through these, like a silken string through a rosary of beads, ran a slight personal narrative which may have been real, and may have been imaginary, but which was probably both. This narrative concerned itself with the life-history of Paul Flemming, a tender-hearted and rather shadowy young gentleman who had lost the friend of his youth, and who had gone abroad that the sea might be between him and the grave. "Alas, between him and his sorrow there could be no sea, but that of time!" He wandered from place to place,-noting what struck his sensitive fancy and discoursing of men and books,student at once and pilgrim. The hand that penned "Outre-Mer" was visible on every page of "Hyperion," but the hand had grown firmer in the Craigie house than it was at Brunswick; and the scholarly sympathies of the writer had embraced a richer literature than that of old Spain and old France. Dismissing the romantic element of "Hyperion" for what it is worth (and there must have been genuine worth in it, for it was the cause of its immediate popularity), the chief and permanent value of the book lay in the new element which it introduced into American literature-the element of German fantasy and romanticism. It would have come in time, no doubt. but to Mr. Longfellow belongs the honor of having hastened the time, and ushered in the dawn. He was the herald of German poetry in the New World. The second book of "Hyperion" contains Mr. Longfellow's first published translation from the German poets-the "Whither?" of Müller ("I heard a brooklet gushing"); the third book contains the "Song of the Bell" ("Bell, thou soundest merrily!"); "The Black Knight" (""Twas Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness"); "The Castle by the Sea" ("Hast thou seen that lordly castle?"); The Song of the Silent Land" ("Into the Silent Land"), and "Beware!" ("I know a maiden fair to see"). Besides these translations in verse, there is, in the first book, a dissertation or chapter on "Jean Paul, the Only One," and in the second book a chapter on "Goethe," whom, Mr. Paul Flemming, by the way, does not greatly admire. His friend the Baron defends the old heathen by saying that he is an artist and copies nature. "So did the artists who made the bronze lamps of Pompeii. Would you hang one of those in your hall? To say that a man is an artist and copies nature is not enough. There are two great schools of art, the imitative and the imaginative. The latter is the more noble and the more enduring." The dignity of the literary profession was earnestly maintained by Mr. Longfellow. "I do not see," remarked the Baron in one of his conversations with Paul Flemming, "I do not see why a successful book is not as great an event as a successful campaign, only different in kind, and not easily compared." The lives of literary men are melancholy pictures of man's strength and weakness, and, on that very account, he thought were profitable for encouragement, consolation and warning. "The lesson of such lives," continued Flemming, "is told in a single word-wait! Therefore should every man wait-should bide his time. Not in listless idleness, not in useless pastime, not in querulous dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavors, always willing and fulfilling and accomplishing his task, that, when the occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it never comes, what matters it? What matters it to the world whether I or you or another man did such a deed, or wrote such a book, so that the deed and book were well done? It is the part of an indiscreet and troublesome ambition to care too much about fame-about what the world says of us; to be always looking in the faces of others for approval; to be always anxious for the effect of what we do and say; to be always shouting, to hear the echo of our own voices." "Believe me," he concluded, "the talent of success is noth ing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame. If it come at all, it will come because it is deserved, and not because it is sought after. And, moreover, there will be no misgivings, no disappointment, no hasty, feverish, exhausting excitement." If fame comes because it is deserved, it certainly comes to some men much sooner than to others; why, their contemporaries and rivals do not perceive as clearly as those who come after them. Mr. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, could never understand why Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a more successful writer than himself. He might have discovered the reason, however, if he had chosen to look for it, for it lay upon the surface of the American character. Our taste was not profound forty years ago, nor is it very profound now. But then, as now, we knew what we wanted in literature, and we could distinguish what was new from what was old. There was nothing new in Mr. Longfellow's early poems, which were rather promises than performances, but when he began to publish his "Voices of the Night" (in the " Knickerbocker Magazine," I think), we felt that poetry had undergone a change into something rich and strange. There We had taken the measure (so to speak) of the American poets and knew what to expect from them. Bryant's poetry was calm, meditative, philosophical; Willis's poetry, when not elegantly Scriptural, was light and airy; Halleck's poetry was spirited and martial; Pierpont's poetry was occasional and moral,-a few epithets described all our singers that were worthy of the name. We recognized their excellence, but it by no means exhausted our admiration and capacity for enjoyment. was room for a new poet, there is always room for a new poet, though old poets and old critics and old readers are sometimes slow to admit the fact. There were gardens which yielded our elder singers no flowers,―gardens in which no seed of theirs had ever been sown. It remained for a fresh singer to cultivate them. I hardly know how to characterize the seed which Mr. Longfellow began to sow in "The Voices of the Night." Romanticism does not describe it, for there is nothing romantic in "The Hymn to the Night," nor does morality describe it, except, perhaps, as it bourgeoned in "A Psalm of Life." The lesson of the poem last named and of "The Light of Stars," was the lesson of endurance and |