Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/300

 230

��NOTES BY THE WAY.

��' Poems on Slavery ' were composed during his return from Europe in 1842, and published in a pamphlet of thirty pages. These were followed by ' The Spanish Student.'

Although the scheme was not completed until thirty years later, it was on the 8th of November, 1841, that Longfellow entered in his diary :

elaborate poem by the holy name of Christ ; the theme of which would be the various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle, and modern ages."
 * This evening it has come into my mind to undertake a long and

The Golden The second part was published in 1851 as ' The Golden Legend ' ; Legend.' the third part wag. The New Eng j and Tragedies,' issued in 1868 ;

and the last written was ' The Divine Tragedy,' which appeared in 1871. The whole, with the title of ' Christus,' was published in the autumn of 1872.

On the 13th of July, 1843, Longfellow married Frances Eliza- beth Appleton. She was twenty-five years of age, and is described as " a woman of stately presence, of cultivated intellect, and deep, though reserved feeling."

The event of 1847 was the publishing of ' Evangeline,' followed by ' Kavanagh ' in 1849. The name of the tale is that of an old Roman Catholic family of Maine, now extinct.

On the 3rd of August, 1849, in the early morning, Longfellow's father, whom he had always consulted in reference to his poems, died at the age of seventy- three ; and on the 5th, at sunset, in the Western Cemetery at Portland, he was buried. On his return from the funeral the son wrote in his journal : " Farewell, thou good man, thou excellent father ! "

Longfellow, who had long felt dissatisfaction with his work at Harvard, on account of the lack of time for writing, at length resigned, and on the 12th of September, 1854, received from President Walker the information that the resignation had been accepted.

' Hiawatha ' was published towards the close of 1855 by Ticknor & Fields. It was a great success : four thousand out of the five composing the first edition were sold on the same day, and a new edition of three thousand was ordered ; while David Bogue, the publisher in Fleet Street, wrote in December, when sending Longfellow 100?. for the early sheets, that he had " sold eighteen hundred of the five-shilling edition, and 10,000 of the shilling edition."

Santa Two of Longfellow's poems specially appeal to the English

Filomena ' people : that on the death of the Duke of Wellington at Walmer

m Florence f Castle > and ' Santa Filomena,' a poem in honour of Florence

Nightingale. Nightingale, which Longfellow contributed in November, 1857,

��Marries

Frances

Elizabeth

Appleton.

��Death of his father.

��Resigns Professor- ship.

��Great success

of ' Hiawatha.'

�� �