that night. In reality, the verses must have been rather above the average of "Poets' Corner" literature in Portland, and as the work of a boy still at school, they are even remarkable for a certain melodious sweep of rhythm that betrays little stiffness, except in the concluding quatrain.

THE BATTLE OF LOVELL'S POND.

COLD, cold is the north wind and rude is the blast
That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast,

As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear,
Sighs a requiem sad o'er the warrior's bier.

The war-whoop is still, and the savage's yell
Has sunk into silence along the wild dell;
The din of the battle, the tumult, is o'er,
And the war-clarion's voice is now heard no more.

The warriors that fought for their country-and bled,
Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed;
No stone tells the place where their ashes repose,
Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes.

They died in their glory, surrounded by fame,
And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim;
They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast,
And their names are engraven on honour's bright crest.

HENRY.

By and by The Gazette printed other verses from the same pen, and it became known among the boy-author's friends, that the signature of "Henry" was his.

CHAPTER II.

TEPHEN LONGFELLOW had graduated at Harvard, as we have seen. The State of Maine, however, now boasted a College of its own-Bowdoin College, at Brunswick. Stephen Longfellow was a trustee of this still struggling seminary, and he thought it his duty to support it in every way within his power. Accordingly his sons Stephen and Henry were shipped thither in a smack, when Portland Academy had taught them all it knew, and the tall, slender, blue-eyed, brown-haired, ruddy-cheeked poet-in-embryo took up his abode at Brunswick in the September of 1822. As we might expect, Henry carried to Bowdoin his studious habits, and a shyness of which only one of his contemporaries -Nathaniel Hawthorne-gave equal token. Besides Hawthorne, there were many young students at Bowdoin destined to shine in later life; indeed, the class to which these two young men belonged is reckoned to have contained more students of remarkable promise than any since held within the walls of the building. “I see in my pupils," said Luther, "future burgomasters of the city; therefore is it that I doff my hat to them when I enter the class-room." Could the Bowdoin Professors

have foretold the history of Longfellow and his classmates, they would have unbonneted to them daily, no doubt. Thence came John S. C. Abbott, the historian; J. W. Bradbury, Pierce, Josiah Little, and Jonathan Cilley, all politicians of more or less note; George B. Cheever, preacher and author, besides the two authors. who are the Castor and Pollux of American literature. Hawthorne (his name, by the way, was then spelt Hathorne) thus describes Bowdoin students in "Fanshawe," a tale which he produced at Boston about 1828:1

"From the exterior of the collegians, an accurate observer might pretty safely judge how long they had been inmates of those classic walls. The brown cheeks and the rustic dress of some would inform him that they had but recently left the plough to labour in a not less toilsome field. The grave look, and the intermingling of garments of a more classic cut, would distinguish those who had begun to acquire the polish of their new resi dence; and the air of superiority, the paler cheek, the less robust form, the spectacles of green, and the dress in general of threadbare black, would designate the highest class, who were understood to have acquired nearly all the science their Alma Mater could bestow, and to be on the point of assuming their stations in the world. There were, it is true, exceptions to this general description. A few young men had found their way hither from the distant seaports; and these were the models of fashion to their rustic companions, over whom they asserted a superiority in exterior accomplishments, which the fresh,

I Suppressed by the author as soon as published.

though unpolished, intellect of the sons of the forest denied them in their literary competitions. A third class, differing widely from both the former, consisted of a few young descendants of the aborigines, to whom an impracticable philanthropy was endeavouring to impart the benefits of civilization.

"If this institution did not offer all the advantages of elder and prouder seminaries, its deficiencies were compensated to its students by the inculcation of regular habits, and of a deep and awful sense of religion, which seldom deserted them in their course through life. The mild and gentle rule was more destructive to vice than a sterner sway; and, though youth is never without its follies, they have seldom been more harmless than they were here. The students, indeed, ignorant of their own bliss, sometimes wished to hasten the time of their entrance on the business of life; but they found, in after-years, that many of their happiest remembrances, many of the scenes which they would with least reluctance live over again, referred to the seat of their early studies."

Such was the modest life that Longfellow tranquilly passed for three years, maintaining high rank for scholarliness, rather slow of speech, absent-minded at times even during class recitations, but ever observant of duty towards his instructors, and true to his few chosen associates. Hawthorne was confessedly the laggard and scapegrace of the class, only making good appearances when matters of English composition were on hand; but Longfellow was a model of propriety to the verge of pardonable priggishness. He graduated at nineteen

(1825), and was assigned the delivery of one of the three "English Orations," usually given to the most distinguished degree-men. He chose as his theme "Native Writers," and no doubt did the best he could with the subject under the limitations put upon him. Authority decreed that each "Oration" should last seven minutes! This "Oration" of seven minutes' length on "Native Writers " serves to remind us that Bowdoin was a young college in a young country.

The same fact is noticeable in connection with the next point of Longfellow's career. One of the College

Trustees, Mr. Benjamin Orr, had been so much charmed with a translation from Horace made by the young man at the Senior Examination, that on the strength of this performance he recommended him for a proposed Chair of Modern Languages! Let not the English academic mind, nevertheless, amuse itself too much over this curious proposal. Our own Cambridge has known such things. Did not Watson, the once celebrated Dr. Watson, obtain the Chair of Chemistry at Cambridge ere ever he had conducted a chemical experiment? And did he not, before becoming Bishop of Llandaff, obtain the Professorship of Divinity at the same University, being at the time of the appointment in secular ignorance of the very Articles, and promising to acquaint himself with the business of his Chair after election? Mr. Orr's kindly proposal with regard to this promising young scholar was provisionally approved by the Board, and Longfellow was directed to proceed to Europe-at his father's expense-and there acquire the additional learning necessary to a Professor of Modern Languages.