The fires of the besieging camp Weary both in heart and head. In England, and many other countries, Mr. Longfellow is considered the most distinguished poet of America. Gilfillan, in his English work, published in London, entitled, "Literary Men," in which Mr. Longfellow is the only American author included, thus speaks of his style and characteristics :— "The distinguishing qualities of Longfellow seem to be, beauty of imagination, delicacy of taste, wide sympathy, and mild earnestness, expressing themselves sometimes in form of quaint and fantastic fancy, but always in chaste and simple language. His fertile imagination sympathizes more with the correct, the classical, and the refined, than with that outer and sterner world, where dwell the dreary, the rude, the fierce, and the terrible shapes of things. The scenery he describes best is the storied richness of the Rhine, or the golden glories of the Indian summer, or the environs of the old Nova-Scotian village, or the wide billowing prairie; and not those vast forests, where a path for the sunbeams must be hewn, nor those wildernesses of snow, where the storm and the wing of the Condor divide the sovereignty. In the midst of such dreadful solitudes, his genius rather shivers and cowers, than rises and reigns. "He is a spirit of the Beautiful, more than the Sublime; he has lain on the lap of Loveliness, and not been dandled, like a lion-cub, on the knees of Terror. The magic he wields, though soft, is true and strong. If not a prophet, torn by a secret burden, and uttering it in wild, tumultuous strains, he is a genuine poet who has sought for, and found inspiration, now in the story and scenery of his own country, and now in the lays and legends of other lands, whose native vein, in itself exquisite, has been by him highly cultivated and delicately cherished. It is to us a proof of Longfellow's originality, that he bears so well and meekly his load of accomplishments and acquirements. His ornaments, unlike those of the Sabine maid, have not crushed him, nor impeded the motions of his own mind. He has transmuted a lore, gathered from many languages, into a quick and rich flame, which we feel to be the flame of Genius. It is evident that his principal obligations are due to German literature, which over him, as over so many at the present day, exerts a certain wild witchery, and is tasted with all the sweetness of forbidden fruit. No writer in America has more steeped his soul in the spirit of German poetry, its blended homeliness and romance, its simplicity and fantastic emphasis, than Longfellow. And if he does not often trust himself amidst the weltering chaos of its philosophers, you see him lured by their fascination, hanging over their brink, and rapt in wonder at their strange, gigantic, and evershifting forms. Indeed his "Hyperion" contains two or three exquisite bits of trancendantalism. His poetry is that of sentiment, rather than of thought. But the sentiment is never false, nor strained, nor mawkish. It is always mild, generally manly, and sometimes it approaches the sublime. It touches both the female part of man's mind, and the masculine part of woman's. He can at one time start unwonted tears in the eyes of men, and at another kindle on the cheek of women, a glorious glow of emotion, which the term blush cannot adequately measure; as far superior to it as the splendor of a sunset to the bloom of a peach. "Besides his quality of generous, genial, manhood, Longfellow is distinguished by a mild religious earnestness. We do not vouch for the orthodoxy of his creed, but we do vouch for the firm Christianity of his spirit. No poet has more beautifully expressed the depth of his conviction, that life is an earnest reality,-a something with eternal issues and dependencies; that this earth is no scene of revelry, or market of sale, but an arena of contest, and a hall of doom. This is the inspiration of his "Psalm of Life," than which we have few things finer, in moral tone, since those odes by which the millions of Israel, tuned their march across the wilderness, and to which the fiery pillar seemed to listen with complacency, and to glow out a deeper crimson, in silent praise. To man's now wilder, more struggling, but still more God-guided and hopeful progress, towards a land of fairer promise, Longfellow's "Psalm" is a noble accompaniment.” THE SPANISH STUDENT. AN EXTRACT. (a) VICTORIAN. OUR feelings and our thoughts Tend ever on, and rest not in the Present. PRECIOSA. I have felt it so, but found no words to say it! I cannot reason; I can only feel! But thou hast language for all thoughts and feelings. Thou art a scholar; and sometimes I think We cannot walk together in this world! The distance that divides us is too great! Henceforth thy pathway lies among the stars; VICTORIAN. Thou little skeptic! Dost thou still doubt? What I most prize in woman Is her affections, not her intellect ! The intellect is finite; but the affections Not that of man's ambition. In that stillness Is pure. It cannot change nor hide its nature, PRECIOSA. Yes, that I love thee, as the good love heaven; By loving more. VICTORIAN. PRECIOSA. I cannot love thee more; my heart is full. VICTORIAN. Then let it overflow, and I will drink it, VICTORIAN. She lies asleep, And from her parted lips, her gentle breath HYPOLITO. Which means, in prose, She's sleeping with her mouth a little open! VICTORIAN. O, would I had the old magician's glass HYPOLITO. And wouldst thou venture? VICTORIAN. Ay, indeed I would! HYPOLITO. Thou art courageous. Hast thou e'er reflected How much lies hidden in that one word, now? |