LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, an Arnerican poet, was b. at Portland, Me., ou Feb. 27, 1807. At the age of 14 he entered Bowdoin college, Brunswick, and gradu ated there with high honors in 1825. For a short thne he studied law in his father's office; but a professorship of modern languages having been founded in the Bowdoin college, and offered him, lie accepted it, and proceeded to Europe to qualify himself for the discharge of his new duties. He returned to America iu 1829. His first substantive work, Outre Men appeared in 1835; and in the same year he was appointed to the chair of modern languages and literature at Harvard university. Ile again spent a year in Europe, and made himself acquainted with the Danish and other northern literatures— an acquaintance which he has turned to noble account. In 1839 lie published Hyperion,• a prose romance, and The Voices of the Night; Ballads and other Poems, in 1841; Poems on 'Slavery, 1842; The Spanish, Student, 1843; his Poets and Poetry of Europe, 1845; Bel fry of Bruges, 1846; Evaueline, 1847; Kavanagh, 1849; The Seaside and the Fireside, 18.50; Th,e Golden Legend, 18'51; Hiawatha, 1855; Miles Standish, 1858; Tales of a Way
side Inn, 1863; trans. of Dante, 1867; Aftermath, 1873; The Hanging of the Crane, 1874; Pandora, 1875; Keramo8, 1878, etc. In 1869 lie was made D.C.L. of Oxford.
Of the American poets, Longfellow is the most popular in England, and, at the same time, he is the most national. If his countrymen have not a national epic, Evangeline or Hiawatha is as yet the nearest approach to it. Some of his shorter lyrics are almost perfect in idea and expression. His poetry is deficient in force, but full of picturesque ness; and a certain quaintness of fancy is one of its most delightful attributes.