PREFATORY NOTICE. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, son of the Honourable Stephen Longfellow, was born at Portland, in the State of Maine, United States, on the 27th of February 1807. In 1825 he graduated with distinguished honours at Bowdoin College, Brunswick: he had entered this college at the age of fourteen. The profession contemplated by or for him was that of the law, and he received some training accordingly in his father's office. Even before this, while still an under-graduate at college, he had frequently sent contributions of verse to the United States Literary Gazette: some of his writings in this journal are reprinted in the Voices of the Night, published in 1839. After a while he found that his literary was decidedly stronger than his legal bent; and he aimed at re-entering Bowdoin College in the character of Professor of Modern Languages, for which a chair had newly been established there. With a view to qualifying for this honourable post, he made his first tour in Europe, lasting three years. He passed through France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, and England. This trip both charmed and impressed him greatly, as we may gather from his prose tale of sentiment, Hyperion, as well as from several of his poems. Indeed, we see throughout his writings the man who has glanced over many races and regions, and many epochs too; and the evenness of culture and of receptivity is one of his more prominent characteristics, and might somewhat derogate from his standing as |