his exquisite and gracious mood to poets of a more profound or a more passionate nature. But Longfellow never loses his place with us. He is the guide who first led us to the enchanted country, the interpreter who first made us understand its language.-EDWARD E. HALE, JR.

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THE METER.

The poet's friends told him he must take a familiar meter, that hexameters "would never do." He found, as reported by David Machrae, that his "thoughts would run in hexameters" and declared that the measure would "take root in English soil." It is a measure," he said, "that suits all themes. It can fly low like a swallow, and at any moment dart skyward. What fine hexameters we have in the Bible: 'Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them ;' and this line, 'God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.' Nothing could be grander than that!"

This

Over-dactylic, and therefore monotonous, as Longfellow's hexameters often are, they have the merit of being smooth to read, without analysis, like any other English verse. primary easy lilt was needed for an introduction, until, stage by stage, the popular ear should be wonted to more varied forms.

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The Courtship of Miles Standish" was an advance upon 'Evangeline," so far as concerns structure and the distinct characterization of personages. A merit of the tale is the frolicsome humor here and there, lighting up the gloom that blends with our conception of the Pilgrim inclosure, and we see that comic and poetic elements are not at odds in the scheme of a bright imagination. The verse, though stronger, is more labored than that of "Evangeline"; some of the lines are prosaic, almost inadmissible.-EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

A LITERARY PREDICTION.

We hope that Mr. Longfellow may live a great many years yet, and give us a great many more books. We shall not undertake to pass a sentence which he may compel us to revise. We shall only say that he is the most popular of American poets, and that this popularity may safely be

assumed to contain in itself the elements of permanence, since it has been fairly earned, without any of that subservience to the baser tastes of the public which characterizes the quack of letters. His are laurels honorably gained and gently worn. Without comparing him with others, it is enough if we declare our conviction that he has composed poems which will live as long as the language in which they are written.— JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1849).

OPINION OF AN ENGLISH NOVELIST.

I

The story of Miles Standish and of John Alden is as old as the hills, but it never was told with a clearer or more deliberate purpose, nor in the telling of it were the feelings of the three persons concerned made more conspicuous. do not intend to say that the story as told by Longfellow is deficient in pathos. No such story could be told by him so as to want it altogether. But the whole tale of John Aldenfor he is the hero, and not Miles Standish-is narrated in the language of ordinary life, for which the Latin hexameters are hardly fitted. The history is given with great rapidity, and yet seems to include all that there is to be said. Indeed, the story as a story is admirably complete. 'Evangeline" is not complete. It is vague and wandering, and given only in parts, whereas "Miles Standish" is round and finished from beginning to end.-ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

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ITS STRONG INDIVIDUALITY.

The poet keeps throughout the grace and subtle power of the poet; he keeps all that was ever his own, even to the love of profuse simile, and the quaint doubt of his reader implied by the elaborated meaning; and he loses only the tints and flavors not thoroughly assimilated or not native in him. Throughout is the same habit of recondite and scholarly allusion, the same quick sympathy with the beautiful in simple and common things, the same universality, the same tenderness for country and for home. Over all presides individuality superior to accidents of resemblance, and distinguishing each poem with traits unmistakably and only the author's; and the equality in the long procession of his beautiful thoughts never wearies, but is like that of some fine bas-relief,

in which the varying allegory reveals one manner and many inspirations.-WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.

TOPICS FOR STUDY AND REVIEW QUESTIONS.

I. SOURCES.-1. Where did Longfellow get the characters of his story? 2. Determine the place and time of the action. 3. What connection does the story have with the poet's family history? 4. Does the poem depict the painful or the pleasant side of colonial life? 5. How are two events, the sailing of the "Mayflower," in 1621, and the raid against the Indians, in 1623, connected? 6. How many actual events does Longfellow use?

II. PLOT.-1. Show construction of the plot by table of events or by inverted A, the angle representing the climax and the two arms the complication and resolution. 2. Indicate each crisis in the poem. 3. Where has the author rearranged incidents to suit his plot? 4. Write a paragraph narrating the story told in Part III. or IV. 5. Show how Part V. contains the climax and pivot of the story. 6. Where in Part I. is preparation made for Part V.? 7. Whom do you think the hero of the poem? Why? 8. How is the report of Standish's death received by the lovers? 9. Note the number of surprises in the latter half of the poem. 10. How much time elapses between Parts I. and V.; between Parts VII. and IX.? 11. Give three reasons for Standish's going away from Plymouth in Part VII. 12. How are we informed of events that happened before the opening scene in Part I.? 13. Find five passages descriptive of natural scenery; show color and landscape effects of each; and point out connection between scenes and episodes. 14. Did Alden deliver his message to Priscilla as Standish expected?

III. CHARACTER DRAWING.-1. Study the characterization of Priscilla by the description of her, by her previous conduct, by what she says to Alden, by what she does. 2. Why does she love Alden rather than Standish? 3. In social rank and

property which was more her equal? 4. Study the conflict between love and friendship in the mind of Alden. 5. Write a paragraph on Standish's changes of feeling toward Alden. 6. What do you consider the chief motive or moral of the poem? 7. What other lessons are taught? 8. What does the poet, in the person of Priscilla, show to be the special office, duty, and influence of woman in her relation to man? 9. How many traits has Priscilla peculiar to herself, i.e., individual, and how many that are typical of all women and universal? 10. Are the three chief persons fixed types, or do they change, or grow? 11. Compare differences of occupation, dress, custom, and manners in the seventeenth century from the nineteenth. 12. Which scenes do you think the most humorous, the most touching, the most interesting, the most beautiful? 13. Compare the rival lovers, in intellect, heart, feeling, energy, sensitiveness, courage, refinement, generosity, unselfishness. 14. At which crisis does Priscilla help Alden? 15. Study the characters of the Indians in Part VII.

IV. MISCELLANEOUS.-1. Look up the meaning of such words as matchlock, doublet, wampum, azure-eyed, gules, thwarts, inkhorn, sagamore, ominous, homespun, subterranean, etc. 2. Read the quotations from the Bible. 3. Find other examples of the various figures of speech than those given in the introduction. 4. Scan any ten lines of the poem. 5. Commit to memory any dozen lines that you care for. (Other questions will suggest themselves to the teacher ad libitum.)

G. A. W.

THE COURTSHIP OF MILES

STANDISH.

I.

MILES STANDISH.

2

IN the Old Colony' days, in Plymouth the land of the Pil

grims,'

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6

-To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,* Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather, Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Cap

tain.

Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing

Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare, Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber,—

5

1 Old Colony was the territory in eastern Massachusetts occupied by the Plymouth colonists.

2 This town, the oldest in New England, is situated on the harbor of the same name on the coast of Massachusetts about thirty-five miles southeast of Boston.

3 The Pilgrims, or Forefathers, were those emigrants who came to America early in the seventeenth century on account of religious differences in England, and founded the Old Colony. The "Mayflower" arrived first with one hundred persons on board, including John Alden, Priscilla, and Miles Standish, who disembarked December 21, 1620. The "Fortune" came next, in November, 1621, with twenty-nine passengers; and the "Anne" and the "Little James " brought forty-six more in August, 1623.

4 The colonists built their first houses of rough-hewn logs filled in with mortar; the roofs were thatched, and oiled paper was used instead of glass.

"From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century the costume for men included hose or breeches, reaching to the knees, and a doublet, which was a close-fitting garment, double or wadded, covering the body from neck to a little below the waist.

• Cordova, a city and province in southwestern Spain, gave its name to a fine quality of leather manufactured from goat-skin by the Moors. Cordwainer, an English name for shoemaker, is derived from Cordovan.

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