HENRY WADSWORTH

LONGFELLOW.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, the beloved and revered poet, was born in Portland, Me., Feb. 27, 1807.

In Parson Smith's "Journal," the source of so much of what is known concerning the early history 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. He was a native of Newbury, Mass. His grandfather, William Longfellow, was born in Hampshire county, England, about the year 1651. In early life he came to Newbury, where, Nov. 10, 1678, he was married to Anne, daughter of Henry Sewall, and a sister of Samuel Sewall, afterward Chief Justice of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. As ensign, he accompanied Sir William Phips's ill-fated expedition to Quebec, in 1690. On the return of the fleet, a violent storm scattered the vessels in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That in which William Longfellow sailed went ashore at Anticosti, a deso- | late island, and he, with nine others, was drowned.

Of his six children, one, named Stephen Longfellow (for Stephen Sumner, Mrs. Longfellow's grandfather), had died in early childhood; and to another son, born Sept. 22, 1685, the same name was given. This was the father of Stephen Longfellow, who came to Portland 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. He married, March 25, 1714, Abigail Thompson, daughter of Edward Thompson, of Marshfield, by whom he had ten children. In his son Stephen, born Feb. 7, 1723, he seems early to have discovered signs of intellectual promise, and he sent him to Harvard College, where he was graduated in 1742. The father was permit

ted to follow the honorable career of his son for nineteen years, and he died Nov. 7, 1764.

Before taking up his residence in Portland, Stephen Longfellow had been keeping school in York. He came to Portland on the earnest invitation of Parson Smith, and opened his school April 17, 1745. The number of scholars is not known. In the following year it was fifty, and in the list which has been preserved occur the names of the prominent families of that day. Oct. 19, 1749, he married Tabitha Bragdon, of York. He continued to be the principal instructor in the town until 1760, when he was appointed Clerk of the Judicial Courts. When the town was destroyed, Oct. 18, 1775, Mr. Longfellow's house was burned, and he removed to Gorham, ten miles distant, where he died May 1, 1790.

Of his three sons (Stephen, Samuel, and William), the latter died in early life, while Samuel left no children. Stephen, the eldest son, was born Aug. 3, 1750. Dec. 13, 1773, he married Patience Young, of York. His home was in Gorham, where he died May 28, 1824. 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. To the close of his life he wore the old-style dress, — short clothes, a long waistcoat, and white top-boots. He was a 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 Wadsworth Longfellow. He entered Harvard College in 1794. That he was a favorite with his class is the testimony of his associates; but he went to College for other purposes than good fellowship. He was an earnest, exemplary student, and having completed his course, he left the University with a full share of its honors. After his graduation he entered the law office of Salmon Chase, an uncle of Salmon Portland Chase, late Chief Justice of the United States, and

The first school that Mr. Longfellow attended was kept by Marm Fellows, in a small brick school-house on Spring Street. Later, he went to the town school on Love Lane, now Centre Street. A week or two later he was 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, now Congress. Afterward he attended the Portland Academy, under the same master, and also under the mastership of Mr. Bezaleel Cushman, a graduate of Dartmouth College, who took charge of the Academy in 1815, and was at its head twenty-six years. One of his assistants, while Mr. Longfellow was connected with the Academy, 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 during the first years of his Colege 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 not a few who were to achieve distinction in the field of letters, in the pulpit, and at the Bar.

When he entered College, Mr. Longfellow had already occupied the poet's corner in the Portland newspapers. His first published poem was on Lovell's fight. In his complete poetical works, as now issued, are seven poems which he tells us were written for the most part during his College life, and all of them before he was nineteen years of age. They were first published in "The United States Literary Gazette," and thence found their way into the columns of the daily and weekly press of the country.

Mr. Longfellow graduated second in a class of thirty-seven, and so full of promise was his future, that when, soon after his graduation, it was proposed to establish a chair of Modern Languages and Literature at 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 and a half years were spent in the study of the more important languages of Europe on their native soil. When he returned to Brunswick, in 1829, he brought with him a mind amply stored with the treasures of the literature of France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, and England. His reputation as an instructor was now established, and students were attracted to Bowdoin by his growing fame.

In September, 1831, Mr. Longfellow was married to Mary S. Potter, daughter of Judge Barrett Potter of Portland. His first published 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 was published two years later.

At this time Mr. George Ticknor, the learned Professor of Modern Languages in Harvard University, resigned, and the publication of "Outre Mer," and Mr. Longfellow's growing reputation as a poet, led to his appointment as Mr. Ticknor's successor. Before entering on his professorship at Cambridge, in order to devote some time to study in the languages of Northern Europe, he again visited the Old World. The summer of 1835 was spent in Norway and Sweden, and the autumn and winter in Holland and Germany. But his studies were interrupted by the sudden death of his wife at Rotterdam, Nov. 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 entered 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, 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, Mr. 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 Boston. In this historic dwelling Mr. Longfellow's children, two sons and three daughters, were born; and here, too, occurred the tragic death of his wife, an affliction most keenly felt, which has chastened all his subsequent years.

In the University he had the oversight of the work of four or five instructors in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. He also gave lectures on prominent authors and their works. His spare time was given to literary labor. 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 himself has recorded in the lines,

"Yes, within this very room

Sat he in those hours of gloom,
Weary both in heart and head."

Here, amid the pleasantest of surroundings, have been written in successive years so many of those poems,

"Voices and melodies from beyond the gates," which have fallen so sweetly upon waiting hearts in many lands.

Mr. Longfellow retained his professorship at Cambridge seventeen years, and then resigned, in order to give himself wholly to literary work. In 1859 he received from Harvard University the honorary degree of

LL.D., and on revisiting Europe in 1868-69, he received the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford, and that of LL.D. from Cambridge. This was a just recognition 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 Mr. Longfellow has not been conspicuous upon public occasions. 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 was the fiftieth anniversary of his class, and though he was asked to honor the day with his verse, those "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," bore witness to the pure soul 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 familiar places of his youth; beloved instructors, of whom all but one had passed into the land of shadows; the students who filled the seats he and his companions once had occupied; and, finally, his classmates,

"against whose familiar names not yet The fatal asterisk of death is set."

One of these classmates, the Rev. David Shepley, 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 intelligent 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 would not again witness a gathering of the class of 1825."