HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

(1807-1882)

F THE ability to express the best and most helpful thoughts that are common to humanity in all ages and countries, and

to make this expression so lucid, so simple, so truthful, that those who most need to be helped by it are reached, influenced, and elevated—if to do this is the highest work of the poet, then Longfellow's sphere of usefulness in poetry is higher and more nearly universal than that of any other poet who has written English verse during the nineteenth century. In what may be classed as the peculiar qualities of genius, he may not rank with Byron, with Shelley, or even with Tennyson or Swinburne in England, or with Poe and Lanier in America. But his usefulness is incomparably greater in America than that of any other poet of his century. He is peculiarly the poet of the home and the favorite of all those who prefer for themselves, or for those they wish to influence, an assured future of quiet usefulness rather than an uncertain and feverish life of that spasmodic admiration which the world bestows only on the extraordinary or the abnormal. The quiet stream which, beginning as a cold and pellucid brook flowing from the melting snows of some lofty mountain peak, gathers volume and increasing warmth in the lowlands until, without losing its native purity and clarity, it swells at last to a noble river, fertilizing wide areas of wood and field, of orchard and garden where grain and fruit and flowers in profusion and in beauty cheer the eye and delight the heart as a result of its fructifying influences - this is the type of the usefulness of Longfellow as a poet, as a benefactor of his own country, as a friend of universal humanity.

That he was one of the greatest scholars of New England, as well as its greatest poet, is a fact which his own modesty left unasserted. But no one who attempts to follow him where his traces are obvious, through the literature of the classical, mediæval, and modern period, will doubt the extent of his industry or the thoroughness of his scholarship. As a prose writer he has an unpretentious and lucid style of direct statement which is always admirable in its spirit, and seldom at fault in its expression. His prose in the essays he has prefixed to "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," in his "Hyperion," and "Outre-Mer» ranks with the very best prose of its class written in

America, and it is essentially superior both in idea and expression to the best work of the members of Longfellow's own literary circle, who made prose writing much more a specialty that he ever attempted to do. If it were not that his use of German hexameter in his "Evangeline" is still under discussion, it might be said without danger of dispute that he did his best work in everything he attempted, and that he did even his worst work well. It is true when all is said that "Evangeline" is an admirable poem, worthy of its theme and of its author, though its mode is that of Voss rather than of Homer. When all has been admitted that can be truly said in depreciation of Longfellow, his work remains still unimpeached, to testify that there is no higher name in the American literature of the nineteenth century. He was born at Portland, Maine, February 27th, 1807. After graduating at Bowdoin College in 1825, he spent between two and three years in Europe, returning to become professor of Modern Languages at Bowdoin (1829-1835). After a second visit to Europe he became professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres at Harvard, where he remained eighteen years, retiring in 1854 and continuing to reside at Cambridge, where he devoted himself to literature. poems were widely circulated in England, and many of them have been translated into German and other continental languages. He died March 24th, 1882, after a life so placid that but for his deep sorrow at the loss of his wife it might have been redeemed wholly from that pathetic element which so frequently excites, if it does not occasion, poetic genius. The placidity of his life which re-appears in his verse has been the chief occasion for the charge of commonplaceness brought against him. But it is illogical to the last degree to confound the peaceful with the commonplace. The spirit of peace is as rare in poetry as it is in life, and it is Longfellow's greatest glory that his work expresses it.

His

W. V. B.

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ANGLO-SAXON LANGUAGE AND POETRY

E READ in history that the beauty of an ancient manuscript. tempted King Alfred, when a boy at his mother's knee, to learn the letters of the Saxon tongue. A volume which that monarch minstrel wrote in after years now lies before me so beautifully printed that it might tempt any one to learn, not only the letters of the Saxon language, but the language also. The monarch himself is looking from the ornamental initial letter of the first chapter. He is crowned and careworn; having a beard, and long, flowing locks, and a face of majesty.

He seems to have just uttered those remarkable words, with which his preface closes: "And now he prays, and for God's name implores, every one of those whom it lists to read this book, that he would pray for him, and not blame him, if he more rightly understand it than he could; for every man must, according to the measure of his understanding, and according to his leisure, speak that which he speaks, and do that which he does. »

I would fain hope that the beauty of this and other AngloSaxon books may lead many to the study of that venerable language. Through such gateways will they pass, it is true, into no gay palace of song; but among the dark chambers and moldering walls of an old national literature, all weather-stained and in ruins. They will find, however, venerable names recorded on those walls; and inscriptions, worth the trouble of deciphering. To point out the most curious and important of these is my present purpose; and according to the measure of my understanding, and according to my leisure, I speak that which I speak.

The Anglo-Saxon language was the language of our Saxon forefathers in England, though they never gave it that name. They called it English. Thus King Alfred speaks of translating "from book-latin into English" (of bec Ledene on Englisc); Abbot Elfric was requested by Ethelward "to translate the book of Genesis from Latin into English" (anwendan of Ledene on Englisc tha boc Genesis); and Bishop Leofric, speaking of the manuscript he gave to the Exeter Cathedral, calls it "a great English book" (mycel Englisc boc). In other words, it is the old Saxon, a Gothic tongue, as spoken and developed in England. That it was spoken and written uniformly throughout the land is not to be imagined, when we know that Jutes and Angles were in the country as well as Saxons. But that it was essentially the same language everywhere is not to be doubted, when we compare pure West Saxon texts with Northumbrian glosses and books of Durham. Hickes speaks of a Dano-Saxon period in the history of the language. The Saxon kings reigned six hundred years; the Danish dynasty, twenty only. And neither the Danish boors, who were earthlings (yrthlingas) in the country, nor the Danish soldiers, who were dandies at the court of King Canute, could, in the brief space of twenty years, have so overlaid or interlarded the pure Anglo-Saxon with their provin

cialisms, as to give it a new character, and thus form a new period in its history, as was afterwards done by the Normans.

The Dano-Saxon is a dialect of the language, not a period which was passed through in its history. Down to the Norman. Conquest, it existed in the form of two principal dialects; namely, the Anglo-Saxon in the South; and the Dano-Saxon, or North umbrian, in the North. After the Norman Conquest, the language assumed a new form, which has been called, properly enough, Norman-Saxon and Semi-Saxon.

This form of the language, ever flowing and filtering through the roots of national feeling, custom, and prejudice, prevailed about two hundred years; that is, from the middle of the eleventh to the middle of the thirteenth century, when it became English. It is impossible to fix the landmarks of a language with any great precision; but only floating beacons, here and there.

It is oftentimes curious to consider the far-off beginnings of great events, and to study the aspect of the cloud no bigger than one's hand. The British peasant looked seaward from his harvest field, and saw, with wondering eyes, the piratical schooner of a Saxon Viking making for the mouth of the Thames. A few years-only a few years afterward, while the same peasant, driven from his homestead north or west, still lives to tell the story to his grandchildren, another race lords it over the land, speaking a different language and living under different laws. This important event in his history is more important in the world's history. Thus began the reign of the Saxons in England; and the downfall of one nation, and the rise of another, seem to us at this distance only the catastrophe of a stage play.

The Saxons came into England about the middle of the fifth century. They were pagans; they were a wild and warlike people; brave, rejoicing in sea storms, and beautiful in person, with blue eyes, and long flowing hair. Their warriors wore their shields suspended from their necks by chains. Their horsemen were armed with iron sledge hammers. Their priests rode upon mares, and carried into the battlefield an image of the god Irminsula; in figure like an armed man; his helmet crested with a cock; in his right hand a banner, emblazoned with a red rose; a bear carved upon his breast; and, hanging from his shoulders, a shield, on which was a lion in a field of flowers.

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Not two centuries elapsed before the whole people was converted to Christianity. Elfric, in his homily on the birthday of St. Gregory, informs us that this conversion was accomplished by the holy wishes of that good man, and the holy works of St. Augustine and other monks. St. Gregory beholding one day certain slaves set for sale in the market place of Rome, who were of fair countenance and nobly haired," and learning that they were heathen, and called Angles, heaved a long sigh, and said: "Well-away! that men of so fair a hue should be subjected to the swarthy devil! Rightly are they called Angles, for they have angels' beauty; and therefore it is fit that they in heaven should be companions of angels." As soon, therefore, as he undertook the popehood (papanhad underfeng), the monks were sent to their beloved work. In the Witena Gemot, or Assembly of the Wise, convened by King Edwin of Northumbria to consider the propriety of receiving the Christian faith, a Saxon Ealdorman arose, and spoke these noble words: "Thus seemeth to me, O king, this present life of man upon earth, compared with the time which is unknown to us; even as if you were sitting at a feast, amid your Ealdormen and Thegns in winter time. And the fire is lighted, and the hall warmed, and it rains, and snows, and storms without. Then cometh a sparrow, and flieth about the hall. It cometh in at one door, and goeth out at another. While it is within, it is not touched by the winter's storm; but that is only for a moment, only for the least space. Out of the winter it cometh, to return again into the winter eftsoon. So also this life of man endureth for a little space. What goeth before it and what followeth after, we know not. Wherefore, if this new lore bring aught more certain and more advantageous, then it is worthy that we should follow it."

Thus the Anglo-Saxons became Christians. For the good of their souls they built monasteries and went on pilgrimages to Rome. "The whole country," to use Malmesbury's phrase, “was glorious and refulgent with relics." The priests sang psalms night and day; and so great was the piety of St. Cuthbert, that, according to Bede, he forgot to take off his shoes for months together, sometimes the whole year round; - from which Mr. Turner infers, that he had no stockings. They also copied the Evangelists, and illustrated them with illuminations; in one of which St. John is represented in a pea-green dress with red stripes. They also drank ale out of buffalo horns and wooden