fancied him intensely imaginative, emphatically graphic in his speech, and unequalled in the exuberance of his imagery: in Hiawatha, he is prosaic, tautological, feeble, and often painfully discordant. But now a question may naturally arise; has The Song of Hiawatha, in reality sprung from Indian Legends? Do its materials properly belong to the Indian Edda? Our answer is a most decided negative, which we will now proceed to justify.

In the "Beiträge zur genauren Kenntniss der Ehstnischen Sprache" ("Contributions to a more intimate knowledge of the Esthonian language"), may be seen a contribution by Carl Jaak Peterson, on the Finnish Mythology: in it he speaks of Jumala, the supreme god of the Finns, of Rauni, of Ukko, corresponding to the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans, of Abaan-Emonen his wife, and amongst others of the celebrated Wäinämöinen. This Wäinämöinen is the hero of the "Kalewala," the great national Epic of the Finns. The name of the author of this singular production, (if indeed, which is questionable, it be the work of one individual) is not recorded. After living for centuries among the Finlanders, the fragments of this extraordinary poem, have at last been collected, and now present almost a perfect form. Alexander Castren, having made extensive journeys through Finland, with the most praiseworthy zeal, for the purpose of taking down the ballads, as he heard them sung by the peasants, on the long winter nights, by their blazing log fires, has given us a most excellent Swedish translation. In 1845, a French translation was published by Leuzen Le Duc; another, in German, was printed at Helsingfors, in 1852, by Auton Schiefner, and dedicated to Castren: the latest by Dr Lonnrot, was published in 1849, and contains fifty songs, or runes, and twenty-two thousand, seven hundred and ninety-three verses. Now, it will inevitably be discovered upon examination, that Longfellow has embodied in Hiawatha, the entire form, spirit, and many of the most striking incidents in the Finnish Epics, and that, therefore, his new poem, is no English version, or amplification of the Indian Edda, but a simple appropriation of the prominent stories in the Finnish Kalewala. The resemblance between the two poems is so close, as to preclude the possibility of its being accidental; and yet the author of Hiawatha, makes no further acknowledgment as to the source from whence he has taken his materials, than is to be found in his first note, where he speaks of " this Indian Edda."

Our subject will not, of course, permit us to give a detailed narrative of the plot of The Kalewala, but the outline which we now subjoin for the reader's examination, will, when he compares it with the frame work of Hiawatha, or even with that description of it, which we shall hereafter lay before him, be sufficient to shew the very great similarity which exists between them. The hero of the poem is Wäinämöinen, son of the daughter of the air, who let herself down from heaven into the sea, and was there wooed by the Storm Wind. After wandering on the face of the waters for ages upon ages, he at length reaches the land, and begins his career as a benefactor of man. Then follows a description of his exploits and adventures, extending through forty-nine runes. When at last his mission is accomplished, Wäinämöinen enters his boat, sails away over the sea, and is finally seen mingling with the clouds. Let us now compare the prelude of Hiawatha, with the following extract from that of the Kalewala (from the German translation), into English of the same metre, which is also that of the original:

HIAWATHA.

SHOULD you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odours of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?

I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fenlands,
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.

THE KALEWALA.

These the words we have received,
These the songs we do inherit,
Are of Wainamoinen's girdle,
From the forge of Ilmarinen,
Of the sword of Kankomieli,
Of the bow of Youkohainen,
Of the borders of the North-fields,
Of the plains of Kalewala.

These my father sung afore time,
As he chipped the hatchet's handle;
These were taught me by my mother,
As she twirled her flying spindles;
When I on the floor was sporting,
Round her knee was gaily dancing,
As a pitiable weakling,

As a weakling small of stature;

I repeat them as I heard them
From the iips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer."

Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs, so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
"In the birds'-nests of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver,
In the hoof-prints of the bison,
In the eyry of the eagle!

"All the wild-fowl sang them to him
In the moorlands and the fenlands,
In the melancholy marshes;

Chetowaik, the plover, sang them,
Mahng, the loon, the wild goose, Wawa,
The blue heron, the Shah-shuh-gah,
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa !"

Never failed these wond'rous stories,
Told of Sampo, told of Louhi:
Old grew Sampo in the stories;
Louhi vanished with her magic;
In the songs Wiunen perished;
In the play died Lemminkainen.
There are many other stories,
Magic sayings, which I learned,
Which I gathered by the wayside.
Culled amid the heather-blossoms,

Rifled from the bushy copses;

From the bending twigs I plucked them
Plucked them from the tender grasses,

When a shepherd boy I sauntered,
As a lad upon the pastures,
On the honey-bearing meadows,
On the gold-illumined hillock,
Following black Muurikki
At the side of spotted Kimmo.

Songs the very coldness gave me,
Music found I in the rain-drops;
Other songs the winds brought to me,

Other songs, the ocean-billows;
Birds, by singing in the branches,
And the tree-top spoke in whispers.

Without discussing the adaptability of the metre (the trochaic dimeter), in which Hiawatha is written, to the subject of the poem, which we make bold to affirm, the reader of five pages, will determine to its disadvantage, we come now to the story as it is given us by Longfellow. Gitche Manito, the mighty, seeing the necessity of putting an end to the constant battles and dissensions, which took place between the different savage tribes, convokes a meeting of the various nations, impresses upon them the wickedness of their past lives, and having previously broken a portion of the "red pipe stone quarry" on which he is standing, and "moulded it into a pipe head," he smokes it, "the calumet, the peace pipe," and urges them to follow his example, to live in amity with one another, assuring them that he will send a prophet amongst them, who shall guide and teach them, and also toil and suffer in their behalf. Then, "the Master of Life," having received their promise that his instructions shall be attended to, ascends in volumes of smoke from his peace pipe, to, "the doorways of the Heaven."

Hiawatha, the prophet, sent by Gitche Manito, is the offspring of Wenonah and the West Wind. Wenonah's mother, Nokomis, is the daughter of the Moon, and thus is her appearance on the earth accounted for.

She was sporting with her women,
Swinging in a swing of grape-vines,
When her rival, the rejected,
Full of jealousy and hatred,

Cut the leafy swing asunder,

Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines,

And Nokomis fell affrighted
Downward through the evening twilight,
On the Muskoday, the meadow,

On the prairie full of blossoms.
"See! a star falls!" said the people;
"From the sky a star is falling!"

The West Wind, Mudjekeewis, proves a faithless lover, the result of which is, that Wenonah taking it to heart, dies of grief, and the old crone Nokomis becomes the guardian of the young Hiawatha. His grandmother teaches the stripling many things, he gradually becomes acquainted with the different animals, and their peculiarities, learns the names of the different signs in the heavens, and proves himself a rare instance of the precocity of genius. In time, he cultivates the acquaintance of lagoo the great boaster, who makes a bow and arrows for Hiawatha, and literally teaches "the young idea how to shoot."

Forth into the forest straightway

All alone walked Hiawatha

Froudly, with his bow and arrows;

And the birds sang round him, o'er him,
Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!"
Sang the Opechee, the robin,
Sang the blue-bird, the Owaissa,
"Do not shoot us, Hiawatha !"

Up the oak-tree, close beside him,
Sprang the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
In and out among the branches.
Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree,
Laughed, and said between his laughing,
"Do not shoot me, Hiawatha !"

And the rabbit from his pathway
Leaped aside, and at a distance
Sat erect upon his haunches,
Half in fear and half in frolic,
Saying to the little hunter,

"Do not shoot me, Hiawatha !"

But he heeded not, nor heard them,
For his thoughts were with the red deer;
On their tracks his eyes were fastened,
Leading downward to the river,

To the ford across the river,
And as one in slumber walked he.
Hidden in the alder-bushes,
There he waited till the deer came,
Till he saw two antlers lifted,

Saw two eyes look from the thicket,
Saw two nostrils point to windward,
And a deer came down the pathway,
Flecked with leafy light and shadow.
And his heart within him fluttered,
Trembled like the leaves above him,
Like the birch-leaf palpitated,
As the deer came down the pathway.

Having shewn his facetious friends, the Opechee, the Owaissa, and the Adjidaumo, that he has higher game in his eye than they are, he is ambitious to prove himself a crack-shot, so taking steady aim, he shoots the arrow, kills the roebuck, and carries him home, where he receives the hearty congratulations of Iagoo and Nokomis.

"Tempore ruricolæ patiens fit taurus aratro,
Praebet et incurvo collo, premendo jugo."

And so, Time, the great teacher, accustoms Hiawatha to all the hardships of the hunter's life.

Out of childhood into manhood
Now had grown my Hiawatha,
Skilled in all the craft of hunters,
Learned in all the lore of old men,
In all youthful sports and pastimes,
In all manly arts and labours.

Swift of foot was Hiawatha ;
He could shoot an arrow from him,

And run forward with such fleetness,
That the arrow fell behind him!
Strong of arm was Hiawatha;

He could shoot ten arrows upward,
Shoot them with such strength and
swiftness,

That the tenth had left the bow-string
Ere the first to earth had fallen!

This forcibly reminds us of the verse,

"Queen Bess was a charming woman,
She knew both Latin and Greek,
I'm told she could solve a problem
In Euclid before she could speak."

With manhood comes the love of adventure, and Hiawatha, who had a pair of mittens, Minjekahwun, which, when he wore, he could smite rocks into powder, and mocassons which enabled him to advance a mile in every stride, determines to find out Mudjekeewis, and punish him for his treachery to his mother. Having crossed the Mississippi, the mountains of the prairie, the land of crows and foxes, and the dwellings of the Blackfeet, he arrives at the residence of Mudjekeewis,

"Ruler of the winds of Heaven."

All who have ever been at a public school are aware of the pugilistic tendencies of boys, and Hiawatha, now a young man, retains all the quarrelsome spirit of early youth, though his mode of fighting is more terrible, than that of those who figure "in the fisty ring." Evincing an amount of pluck, which might have excited the envy of the Tipton Slasher, he exhibits what we are assured by various writers in Bell's Life, is "one of the best signs," and picking a quarrel with his father, he "comes to the fight laughing.'

And he cried, "O Mudjekeewis,
It was you who killed Wenonah,
Took her young life and her beauty,
Broke the Lily of the Prairie,
Trampled it beneath your footsteps;
You confess it! you confess it!"
And the mighty Mudjekeewis

Tossed his gray hairs to the West-Wind,
Bowed his hoary head in anguish,
With a silent nod assented.

Then up started Hiawatha

And with threatening look and gesture
Laid his hand upon the black rock,
On the fatal Wawbeek laid it,
With his mittens, Minjekahwun,
Rent the jutting crag asunder,

Smote aud crushed it into fragments,
Hurled them madly at his father,
The remorseful Mudjekeewis.
For his heart was hot within him,
Like a living coal his heart was.

But the ruler of the West-Wind
Blew the fragments backward from him,
With the breathing of his nostrils,
With the tempest of his anger,
Blew them back at his assailant;
Seized the bulrush, the Apukwa,
Dragged it with its roots and fibres
From the margin of the meadow,
From its ooze, the giant bulrush;
Long and loud laughed Hiawatha !

The combat lasts for three whole days, during the entire time of which Mudjekeewis retreated, fighting. At length the strife is put an end to, Mudjekeewis having informed Hiawatha, that, "he bears a charmed life." He instructs his son to go home, compliments him on his valour, and bids him slay all the monsters, magicians, giants, aud serpents, which infest the hunting grounds of his people. Hiawatha follows his advice, and departs homeward, calling on his way at the lodge of an arrow maker, of the tribe of the Dacotahs, who has got a handsome daughter, Minnehaha, Laughing Water, whose beauty you may well guess, and not the arrows of her father, was the principal cause of the visit. Our hero, like a true philanthropist, proposes to himself a fast, which has for its object the amelioration of the condition of his race. For three whole days he fasted without interruption, but on the evening of the fourth, he sees a youth approaching to him, dressed in garments of green and yellow.

"Plumes of green bent o'er his forehead,
And his hair was soft and golden."

The youth by name, Mondamin, informs Hiawatha that "he is the friend of Man, and is sent by "the Master of Life," to shew him, how by wrestling with him, (Mondamin), he may gain his prayer. Hiawatha wrestles with him for three con