LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH (ante), was the son of Stephen, an emiuent lawyer of Portland, Me. While a student in Bowdoin college he wrote some of the best known of his earlier poems, among them the Hymn of the Moravian NUM; the Spirit of Poetry; "noels in Winter, and Sunrim on the Hills. He held his professorship at Ilar yard 17 years, resigning in 1854, but continuing to reside at Cambridge, in the house occupied by Washington when the revolutionary army was encamped in that neighbor hood. Ile spent the summer of 1842 at Boppard on the Rhine. In 1868-69 he revisited Europe, aud was everywhere the recipient of high honors, especially in England, where his writings are exceedingly popular. Men of the highest literary aud social distinction sought his acquaintance and were charmed by his dignified, kindly, and unassuming deportment. The general verdict upon his poetry is that,'while it fails to represent the deepest passions of human nature, it is always kindled by the broadest sympathies, and marked by a delicate appreciation of all that is beautiful in nature and noble in human ity. Keenly sensitive to the imperfections and misdoings of men, he is never censori
ous, but always gentle and persuasive, appealing to tho sympathies and motives which are common to people of every race, country, and clime. He exhibits the fruits of a broad culture, not in strained allusions to things beyond the reach of common readers, but in the clearness and simplicity with which he interprets to them the noblest thoughts of the noblest men of every age and country. Among his latest works are Poems of Places, selected from a great number of authors and tilling 31 small volumes; and Ultima Thule, a volume of original poems.