Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/31

 LONGFELLOW

LONGFELLOW

favorifce among his own writings. Holmes likened it to some '* exquisite symphony." He resigned his chair at Harvard in 1854, and at his suggestion James Russell Lowell was elected to fill the va- cancy. ** Hiawatha ; an Indian Edda," which appeared in 1855, is said to be his most genuine addition to American literature, and has been translated into nearly all of the modern languages and into Latin. The poem won immediate rec- ognition in Europe, and within four weeks of its publication ten thousand copies had been sold. When the Atlantic Monthly was established in 1857 Longfellow became a contributor. A sad accident befell Mrs. Longfellow on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 9, 1861. A bit of burning wax from which she was making seals for her children, fell on her dress and she was immediately envel- oped in flames and died on the following day. Her husband in trying to smother the flames re- ceived serious injuries himself. The shock of her death sadly affected the poet, who once remarked to a fiiend "I was too happy. I might fancy the gods envied me, if I could fancy heathen gods." Mrs. Longfellow left flve children : Charles Appleton, a lieutenant in thp 1st Massa- chusetts cavalry during the civil war ; Ernest Wadsworth, the artist (q.v.), and three daughters, Alice, Edith and Annie, who were the " blye-eyed banditti " of his " Children's Hour." The poet had commenced a translation of Dante's '* The Divine Comedy" during the early years of his Harvard professorship, and after his wife's death found solace in the completion of the work. This was regarded by many critics as the best translation in the English language. He visited Europe for the fourth time in 1868, and while in England had an interview with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle on July 4, 1868, and was en- tertained by Tennyson at the Isle of Wight. He spent the winter and spring of 1868-69 in Italy, again made a brief stay in England ,and returned to his home in Cambridge in August, 1869. For " The Hanging of the Crane," which first appeared in the New York Ledger in 1874, Longfellow received $4000. In 1875, with the assistance of John Owen, Mr. Longfellow began to edit a collection of poems, to which was given the title " Poems of Places" (1876-79), and after Senator Sumner's death he assisted in editing the remaining six volumes of the fifteen containing •' The Works of Charles Sumner." On Feb. 27, 1879, the occasion of the poet's seventy-second birthday, the chil- dren of Cambridge presented him with an arm- chair constructed from the wood of the old chestnut tree, made famous by his poem "The Village Blacksmith." He responded to this gift in that tender and touching poem, entitled "From My Arm-chair." His seventy-fifth birth- day was generally celebrated all over the United VlT.— 2

States, especially by the school children. Charles Kingsley said of Longfellow : " His face was tl.e mirror of his harmonious and lovely mind— I tlo not think I ever saw a finer human face." H« has been called the " American poet laureate " He was an honorary member of the Historical and Geographical society of Brazil, a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. St. Petersburg, and of the Royal Academy of Spain ; a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Massa- chusetts Historical society. A bust to his mem- ory was placed in the poets' corner at Westminster Abbey in March, 1884, he being the first and up to 1901 the only American author to be so honored. Longfellow Park was given to Cambridge by his children, and a monument to his memory was erected in Portland, Maine. His name was one of the twenty-three in " Class A, Authors and Editors " submitted in October, 1900, for a place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, New York university, and received eighty-five out of ninety-seven possible votes, Emerson alone in the class exceeding with eighty-seven votes, Irving and Hawthorne receiving eighty-three and seventy-three votes respectively, and the four names were selected. He received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard in 1859, from Cambridge, England, in 1868, and from Bowdoin in 1874 ; and that of D.C.L. from Oxford, England, in 1869. The following is a list of the prin- cipal works of Longfellow : Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique (1833); Outre-Mer (1835); Hyperion (1839); Voices of the Night (1839); Ballads and Other Poems (1841); Poems on Slavery (1842); Spanish Student (1843); Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845); Belfry of Bruges (1846); Evange- line (1847); Kavanagh (1849); Seaside and the Fireside (1850); Golden Legend (ISol); Hiawatha (1855) ; Miles Standish (1858) ; Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863) ; Floiver-de-Luce (1867) ; Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri (1867-70); New England Tra- gedies (1868); Divine Tragedy (1871); TJiree Books of Song (1872); Christus (1872); Aftermath (1873); Hanging of the Crane (1874); Masque of Pandora (1875); Keramos (1878); Ultima TJiule (1880); In the Harbor (part II. of Ultima ThtUe 1883); Michael Angelo (1884). Biographies of Longfellow have been written by Thomas David- son (1882); Francis H. Underwood (1882); W. Sloane Kennedy (1882); George Lowell Austin (1883); Samuel Longfellow (1885); Eric S. Rob- ertson (London, 1887), and others. Longfellow died at his Cambridge home of peritonitis, and at the funeral services were read the verses from " Hiawatha" beginning : " He is dead, the sweet musician." Fields, Holmes, Emerson and Whit- tier were among the mourners. The date of his death is March 24, 1882.