* LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, was born at Port land, Maine, United States of North America, on the 27th of February 1807, the son of the Hon. Stephen Longfellow of that place. In his fifteenth year he entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, at which college he graduated with high honours in 1825. While at college be con tributed various pieces of verse to the 'United States Literary Gazette.' He was intended for the study of the law, and spent some time in his father's office for that purpose ; but a professorship of modern languages having been founded in Bowdoin College and offered to him, he accepted the office as more congenial to his tastes. In order to qualify himself for the office, being thou quite a youth, he came over to Europe, where he spent three years aud a half in travelling through France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, and England, and in acquiring a knowledge of the languages and literature of those countries. His residence in Germany, in particular, had a powerful influence upon him—au influence visible throughout his subsequeut writings. It begot in him a kind of eclectic theory of literature, and a love for European and especially medizeval and German themes and eentimeute, as distinct from that intense American nationalism 'which some of his countrymen advocated. "All that is beet," he has said, "in the great poets of all countries is not what is national iu them, but what is universal. Their roots are in their native soil, but their branches wave in the unpatriotic air." This was a state of feeling very proper in one who was to fill the office of Professor of Modern Languages in an American College ; which office ho returned to occupy in the year 1829, while yet only in his tweuty-third year. While discharging the duties of the post, he wrote various articles of literary biography and criticism for the 'North American Review ; ' in 1833 ho published a translation of a Spanish poem, with an Essay on Spanish Poetry ; and in 1835 appeared the first of his regular prose-works—' Outre-Mer, or a Pilgrimage beyoud the Sea,' containing sketches of his travels in France, Spain, and Italy. In this same year, Mr. George Ticknor having resigned the Professorship of Modern Languages and Literature at Harvard University, Mr. Longfellow, then twenty-eight years of age, was called upon to sueeeed him. Before eutering on the office he spent another year in European travel, visiting Germany again, and also Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden, and thus adding a knowledge of the Scandinavian tongues and litera ture to his previous acquirements. From the year 1830 to the present time Mr. Longfellow has held, with high distinction, the chair in Harvard University ; and it is during this period that he has pub lished the series of work. by which he is beat known. In 1839 he
published his prose-romance of Hyperion ; ' in 1840 his 'Voices of the Night,' a collection of poems; in 1841 his 'Ballads and other Poems,' including translations from the German and Swedish ; in 1842 (in which year he again visited Europe) a drama called ' The Spanish Student;' In 1843 his 'Poems on Slavery ; ' in 1845 his 'Belfry of Bruges,' and also an extensive work entitled The Poets and Poetry of Europe,' consisting of translations from various languages, with introductions and biographical notices; in 1847 his poem of Evangeline,' a story of early American colonial life, written in English Hexameter.; in 1848 his 'Kavanagh,' a kind of poetico philosophical tale ; in 1849 a political series entitled ' The Sea-Side and the Fireside;' in 1851 the 'Golden Legend,' a mystical and dramatic version of a mediaeval German story; and lastly, in 1855, his 'Song of Hiawatha,' a kind of American Indian mythical epic, written in a very peculiar metre.
From the nature of some of the subjects in this long series, it will be seen that Mr. Longfellow, while true in the main to the cosmo politan theory of poetry and literature with which be set out in his career, has yet exhibited his genius again and again in national American topics. No poem indeed is so thoroughly American in its scope and associations as the 'Song of Hiawatha." Of all American poets Mr. Longfellow is the most popular on this side of the Atlantic. Almost all his works have been reprinted separately, some of them in various forms by various publisher.; and there are at present (1856) several editions of his collective works in the market, one or two of which arc illustrated. Though the influence of Goethe, Jean Paul, and other Germans is to be traced both in the matter and in the method of some of his writings, there can be no doubt that he is a man of fine original faculty, a highly-cultivate I scholar, and a genuine literary artist,. LONGHI, GIUSEPPE, an Italian painter, and one of the most distinguished engraver. of the ]9th century, was born at Monza in 1766. His father was a silk-mercer, and intended his son for the Church ; but, through his own determination, Giuseppe was finally placed with the Florentine Vincenzo Vangelisti, professor in the Brera at Milan, under whom ho learnt engraving. He studied after wards some time in Rome, where be became acquainted with Raphael Morghen, a very celebrated engraver; and Longhi soon obtained a reputation himself by his print from the ' Genius of Music,' a picture by Gnido in the Chigi Palace.