Farewell to the sweet sunshine! One glad day By those who watch the dead, and those who twine Oh thou great Movement of the Universe, The courses of the stars; the very hour He knows when they shall darken or grow bright: Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister not now exercising his profession, merits a more particular mention, though he has published but two small volumes of verse and prose. He is the most original man produced by the United States up to this day. He is not like Channing, nor Prescott, nor Irving. Dr. Channing, known by a remarkable essay upon Milton and Napoleon, wants clearness and measure in his thought, and sacrifices to sonorous pomposity, those serious advantages of prose, solidity and concentration. The charming style of Washington Irving has both monotony and mannerism. Prescott, author of a good History of Isabella the Catholic, procured in Spain original and authentic documents from which he has made a wise and complete composition, not overdrawn, and powerful; one is interested additionally in a work, dictated by a blind father to his daughter who has arranged the materials under the paternal direction. Irving is of the school of Addison, Channing imitates Burke, Prescott is modeled upon Robertson, Emerson resembles Carlyle without copying him; his ideas are analagous though often more hazardous; the reconciliation of the reforming and conservative minds, morality carried into industry, human dignity restored to the blind masses, and the hideous sentiment of envy driven back to its lurking place. Emerson has published in prose, only a little yolume called "Essays"-which, when they fell into the hands of Carlyle so struck him by the analogy of their thought with his own, that he published the little volume in London, where it met with considerable success. Some of Emerson's poems are charming. A little piece "To the Bee," delicious in its way, is almost worthy of Milton. Through wood and valley goes the bee, happy, active, disdaining whatsoever is malevolent and ugly, seeking the sunlight, the odorous solitudes, the hidden perfumes, the murmur of running brooks, humming through sheen and fragrance. Nothing is more vivid than this picture, a mystic sense and a concealed view of philosophy wind through the luxurious gracefulness of the images. The very rhythm and melody reproduce the golden flight of the bee through the rich foliage. Thou in sunny solitudes, The green silence dost displace With thy mellow, breezy bass. Nor will we destroy by a translation so delicate a combination of music, form, color and philosophy. More varied than Bryant and Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, now professor of Modern Literature at Harvard University, was brought up in Europe and has travelled in Sweden and Denmark. The modern Scandinavian genius seems to have exercised great influence over his thought. Severe intellectual beauty, a peculiar sweetness of expression and rhythm distinguishes his verse, especially the "Voices. of the Night." He is a "moonlight" poet, say the Americans, and attracts the soul by his sad, sweet grandeur. The effect of his verse is often strange, and the colors are so transparent that sentimental romance would willingly claim the merit of them. No one among the Anglo-Americans has soared higher into the middle air of Poesy than Longfellow, whose most touching poem we will shortly analyze. Little passion, and great calm, approaching to majesty; a sensibility stirred in its very deeps are exhibited in moderated vibration and rhythm; only the Swedish poems of Tegner can give an idea of the gentle melody and thoughtful emotion. Longfellow appears to us to occupy the first rank among the poets of his country; a distinct savor characterizes him; as you read him you seem to feel the permanent mournfulness of the mighty sounds and shadows of the endless prairie and the woods which have no history. CHAPTER VI. EVANGELINE: AN ACADIAN HISTORY. SECTION I. HISTORY OF THE ACADIAN COLONY. "THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, commence. THUS does Evangeline, that singular poem by Longfellow, The scene and the actors belong, as the début shows, to the primeval solitudes of the New World. Evangeline is a romance, written in hexameter verse and in English upon a subject historical and French, and adorned with romantic and metaphysical colors by an American of the United States. It is the end and the beginning of two literatures; the cradle and decline of two poetries; a faint new dawn above an ancient ruin. So go human things, by destruction and resurrection, by complication, alliance, and affinity. Desirous of renewing its intellectual patrimony, without repudiating the wreck of its antique heritage, the Anglo American race attempts since 1846 to create for itself a personal literature and poetry. Irregularity, affectation, want of simplicity as to the means, effect sought for but missed; these are faults to be expected and pardoned. Longfellow's work as incomplete in its order as the chivalric romances of the middle ages, with their irregular and monotonous rhyme, and their defective proportions, which take from their value, is not the less worthy of serious and attentive examination. There we find that worship of native land, that impassioned love for the heaven and earth of America, that moral energy and that spirit of indomitable enterprise which characterize the republican of the States. The sentiment of morality, of purity, love of duty, sanctity of the affections and of home, profoundly imprinted on this poem, form its deep soul and its secret inspiration. All the landscapes are exact; not only is phantasy wanting, but the sentiment born of them is distinct, powerful, full of freshness, of novelty, of life; only the poet has drawn them gentle and elegant; there is no energy. Generally speaking, what may be criticised in Longfellow comes from the old world. The tokens of vitality and force belong to the new. He gives us too many druids, muses, and bacchantes; the looseness of old Europe, and the mythologic dress float clumsily about the fresh beauties of the child of the forest. There is also too much solemnity and majestic melancholy. A more rustic, more impassioned tone would. have suited better for the simple manners of those Normans transplanted to the Atlantic shore, whose memories the poet wished to recal. Evangeline, the name of a young French girl, the heroine, is a first fault; I will wager that the name of the Norman acadienne was Jeannette or Marianne; daughter of a brave, joyous farmer of the colony; she thought little of moonlight, and yet loved her betrothed none the less. The true secret of the artist would have been to find the |