COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH, AND OTHER POEMS. BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. LONDON: W. KENT & CO. (LATE D. BOGUE), 86, FLEET STREET, AND PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLVIII. THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH.-This poem rests on a basis of historical truth. The house of Standish is one of the oldest in Lancashire. Ralph Standish fought at the battle of Agincourt; John helped to destroy Wat Tyler. Henry Standish, a Bishop of St. Asaph, had the courage to stand by Queen Catherine and assist her in resisting the famous divorce. John Standish wounded Wat when felled to the ground by the arm of Walworth, but Henry, the Bishop, resisted his royal namesake, when the latter was in great power. Miles Standish-the hero of this poem-was the 245688 descendant of a younger brother of this valiant race. The career of poor but daring spirits in the age of Elizabeth was often sought in the Low Countries, where the great question of Religious Liberty against the Spanish Inquisition was being settled on field and scaffold. It was the age of great events-the age of Elizabeth, of Alva, of the Armada, and of the Puritans. Among the soldiers sent over by the Queen of England to help the Dutch in that grand struggle for independence, Miles Standish drew bis sword. He united the wisdom of a true statesman with the nerve and daring of a good soldier, qualities which fitted him in a pre-eminent degree to adorn the post which, when he left Leyden for America, he was called on to fill. In Holland he had learned to admire the devotedness and moral grandeur of the Puritans. Though he never joined their church, he was the staunch friend and sworn defender of that little band of heroic men and women who landed from the May |