Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/238

LON poems on slavery in 1842 had contained a prediction of probable ruin, in consequence of that crime, published under the title of "The Warning," closing with the following stanza:—

In 1851 Longfellow published the very beautiful poem, illustrating so richly, quaintly, and with so much tender feeling, the middle ages in Europe, entitled "The Golden Legend." The play has much of the sweetness and tenderness of sentiment and character exhibited in "Evangeline," and the highest lessons and impulses of the legends of the early and later monastic ages are drawn out in the characters and incidents. The manners of the olden times are exquisitely sketched; saints, scholars, singers, students, doctors, princes, peasants, monks, priests, devils, revellers; the cathedral, street, and town and country life; the plays of sacred festivals and miracles; all the striking elements and features of the ages of superstition passing into faith—are revealed and relieved in exquisitely beautiful language, verse, and imagery. Deep and earnest lessons of piety and moral wisdom are set like fountains welling in a quiet meadow, sprinkled with violets and daisies. In 1855 Longfellow's genius revealed itself in an entirely new and original production, entitled "The Song of Hiawatha," founded on the scenery, traditions, characteristics, manners, and life of the aboriginal Indian tribes of America, viewed indeed in their most poetical light, but yet illustrated with exceeding beauty of truth as well as fiction. The ruder, coarser, savage traits of character and life are not drawn, or are transfigured with the beauty of poetic language and ideal sentiment; and the poem is a singularly beautiful combination of Indian idylls, aboriginal Arabian Nights Entertainments, a Greek Homeric Odyssey of Indian story, with a human being of supernatural endowments, but a human heart and feelings, and a social loving life; and the growth of an Indian love, and the course of an Indian wooing and wedding, and years of happy domestic enjoyments, with tragedies of life and death intermingled—all exquisitely blended in an atmosphere of imagination and of feeling, so pure, so elevated, so lovely, with lights so strangely rich and glowing, that it is as if an Aurora Borealis of shining incidents and creatures were passing before the vision. The genius that indited the rhyme of the "Ancient Mariner," and the poem of "Christabel," might have been employed upon these pages; but, with wonderful art and beauty, the natural and supernatural are so mingled together, in such childlike simplicity of narrative and with such sweet beguiling melody, that the reader is carried along as in a delightful dream of wonder, quite willing to believe the story true.

In the hands of an inferior poetical artist, the measure of this poem must have been monotonous without rhyme; but the style is so artless, the rhythm so true and perfect, the language so pure and chaste, the imaginative quality so constant, the images of natural and rural scenery so lovely and attractive, and the changes of the poem in landscape, event, and character so original, varied, and novel, that the absence of the music and melody of rhyme only gives scope to other elements of beauty, while music and melody are in every line. The genius of the poet Collins in the Ode to Evening could hardly have thrown into language more beautiful pictures, or with sweeter melody, or in a higher style of pure poetical imagination. Gentleness and tenderness of feeling, an uninterrupted sympathy with all the cheerfulness and joy of nature, a familiar interpretation of its meaning, a quiet ease, truthfulness, and accuracy in description, minuteness of detail along with the perpetual light of imagination, characterize the whole poem—a poem of legends and traditions, wild and wayward, with the odours of the forest upon them, and the dew of meadows, and the smoke of wigwams ascending, and the human heart interpreted. Hiawatha's childhood, Hiawatha's fasting, Hiawatha's friends, Hiawatha's sailing, Hiawatha's wooing, the Son of the Evening Star, the Ghosts, the Famine, are exquisitely wrought portions of a work which certainly has no rival in the volumes of modern poetry; there being no other attempted poem of the kind in existence.

In 1858 Longfellow published "The Courtship of Miles Standish," a poem in hexameters, full of character and beautiful description, accompanied with a number of shorter poems, entitled "Birds of Passage." Of these, the "Prometheus;" "The Ladder of St. Augustine;" "The Two Angels;" "Daylight and Moonlight;" and "The Warden of the Cinque Ports;" are perhaps the most strikingly beautiful, and the best examples of the characteristic qualities of Longfellow's productions.

The poet resides in Cambridge, in a fine old country house, surrounded by a beautiful cultivated landscape—the house once celebrated as Washington's head-quarters in the revolutionary war. His writings are probably more widely known in Great Britain than those of any other American poet.—G. B. C.  LONGHI,, a distinguished Italian engraver, was born at Monza in 1766. He was brought up with a view to the church; but his inclination for art was so decided that his father yielded and placed him under V. Vangelisti, the professor of engraving in the Brera, Milan. Afterwards he went to Rome, became acquainted with the famous engraver, Raphael Morghen, and executed a plate from Guido's Music in the Ghigi palace, which was very much admired. Returning to Milan, however, he found no demand for his burin, and practised miniature painting till he received a command to engrave Baron Gros's portrait of the Emperor Napoleon. On the death of Vangelisti in 1798 Longhi was appointed to succeed him as director of the Milan school of engraving; he was an excellent instructor, and his pupils include Anderloni, Toschi, Grüner, and others, who have attained high rank in their profession. Longhi's plates are tolerably numerous and very beautiful. Among the most celebrated of them are the "Marriage of the Virgin," a companion to It. Morghen's large print of the Transfiguration, and quite worthy to stand alongside that famous work; the "Vision of Ezekiel;" and a "Holy Family," after Raphael; "The Entombment," after Crespi; Correggio's Magdalen Reading; Da Vinci's Madonna del Lago; various portraits in the lllustri Italiani; and some plates in the Fasti di Napoleone. He left unfinished a plate of the Last Judgment of Michelangelo; and one of Raphael's Madonna del Velo, which was completed by his pupil Toschi. Longhi died in 1831. He was perhaps the most painter-like in feeling of the great Italian engravers of his time. Without attempting to emulate Raphael Morghen's dexterous arrangement of his lines, Longhi aimed more to convey by any available means the exact intention of the painter, and in this he was usually very successful. He wrote a dissertation on engraving, "La Calcographia," of which there is a German version by C. Barth, with a memoir of Longhi by F. Longhena.—J. T—e.  LONGINUS,, a Platonic philosopher and celebrated rhetorician. He belonged to the third century of the christian era; but the year and place of his birth are unknown. He was born about 213, and was killed in 273. Some call him a Syrian, a native of Emesa. Others say that he was born at Palmyra. It is more probable that he was a native of Athens, where his uncle Fronto, who superintended the education of his nephew and left him his heir, taught rhetoric. It would seem that he visited many countries, and became acquainted with the most distinguished philosophers of the age. At Alexandria he studied under Ammonius Saccas, and Origen. Having returned to Athens, he taught numerous pupils, lecturing there not only on rhetoric and grammar, but philosophy and criticism. As a true Platonist he studied the works of Plato himself, and wrote commentaries on some of his dialogues. Free from allegorical fancies, he became eminent for critical skill. His judgment was clear and good. After residing for a long time at Athens, he went to the East, where he got acquainted with Zenobia of Palmyra, and became preceptor of her children. When this high-spirited woman assumed the sole government of her dominions after the death of her husband, she seems to have been greatly influenced by Longinus' advice. Acting upon it, she attempted to throw off the Roman yoke, and wrote a letter to the Emperor Aurelian with that view. After Palmyra was taken and destroyed, Longinus was beheaded at the command of Aurelian. He was a man of great learning and sound judgment. He had the true spirit of a philosopher, an ardent love of liberty, and great candour. His intellectual culture was chiefly moulded and formed by the works of Plato and Demosthenes. Though a pagan, he was tolerant towards Christianity. He composed a great number of works; but unfortunately nearly all have perished. The chief production which has survived, is a considerable part of the treatise (On the Sublime), addressed to Posthumius Terentianus. There are many gaps in the MSS. or rather MS. at Paris, of which the 