watha, a Poem. We propose to consider a few of its more prominent characteristics.

Before the existence of any established knowledge on the subject, savage nations have always entertained implicit belief in some overruling power. They have given to it such attributes as among them were considered the most honorable and exalted, and they have always reverenced it and obeyed it. The Indians entertained this belief. They looked to the Great Spirit as the source from which all their blessings descended. They were told by tradition, that he had sent to them a messenger "to clear their rivers, forests, and hunting-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace." This personage was known to many of the tribes by the name of Hiawatha. In delineating his character, Mr. Longfellow has invested him with a proper mixture of human and divine qualities.

Appearing as an Indian, yet of mysterious and supernatural parentage, he mingles among the tribes and conducts himself as a mortal. Yet he silently guides their counsels by superior intelligence, fastens stronger and stronger the bonds of friendship between them, buries the remembrance of old enmities, and leads them to peaceful occupations and to a cultivation of the gentler virtues. Gratifying the inclinations of his heart and reconciling the differences of two tribes, he leads to his wigwam, as his wife, Minnehaha, the beautiful heroine of the story. The happy life they were leading is brought to a close by the death of Minnehaha, which had been foretold by the appearance of ghosts and the dusky figures of Fever and Famine. She dies while. Hiawatha, in the cold of the winter, is hunting for the means of prolonging her existence. Hardly recovered from the shock of this calamity, news is brought of the approach of the pale-faces. Two of them enter his humble abode, and are hospitably received. But in their advance he sees the necessity of the Red Man's departure, and, bidding adieu to the cabin which had sheltered him and the friends who gathered round him, and the old chiefs who looked to him

for guidance, he turns his canoe westward, and passes away. He leaves his guests behind him, bidding the tribes

"Listen to their words of wisdom,
Listen to the truths they tell you,

For the Master of Life has sent them
From the land of light and morning."

The sun, setting, throws its brilliant colors over the scene, numbers of the race for whose advancement and happiness he had lived and toiled and suffered crowd around him, the forests and the waves and the birds bid him " Farewell," and the poem closes.

"Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the Beloved,
In the glory of the sunset,
In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest wind, Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the kingdom of Ponemah,

To the land of the Hereafter!"

The metre of the poem has hitherto been employed by no English or American poet. It is the trochaic, and is borrowed from Spanish writers. Mr. Longfellow is distinguished for the oddities and quaintness of his subjects, and style, and metre. Very frequently, in a desire to introduce what is new and striking, he makes serious mistakes. Many critics think he has made a mistake in the "Song of Hiawatha," inasmuch as he has selected a light, ringing metre in which to tell a story of sadness. It may be that, had he chosen some other metre, we should have liked it better; but being as it is, we confess that it is exceedingly pleasing. The Indian names are so beautifully interwoven in it, the simple talk and fine imaginings of the savage race, the delicious descriptions of forest and lake, of beast and bird and fish, the glorious sentiments, far above the capacity of the Indian to conceive, appear to us so picturesquely, so naturally, so easily, that we cannot imagine how anything could be better and all the while be true to the peculiarities of the In

dians. We entirely disagree with those who call the metre childish, and unworthy the story and sentiments of the poem, as well as the taste and reputation of the author. Take, for example, the following passage. Minnehaha is dying in the wigwam, and Hiawatha, hunting in the forest, calls on "Gitche Manito, the Mighty," for food to save her from death.

Through the far-resounding forest,
Through the forest vast and vacant,
Rang that cry of desolation,

But there came no other answer

Than the echo of his crying,

Than the echo of the woodlands,
'Minnehaha! Minnehaha!'

"All day long roved Hiawatha
In that melancholy forest,

Through the shadow of whose thicket,

In the pleasant days of Summer,

Of that ne'er forgotten Summer,

He had brought his young wife homeward

From the land of the Dacotahs;

When the birds sang in the thicket,

And the streamlets laughed and glistened,
And the air was full of fragrance,

And the lovely Laughing Water
Said, with voice that did not tremble,

'I will follow you, my husband!'"

There is exquisite beauty and pathos about these lines. Yet they are exceedingly simple. It would seem as though they might be written by any one with very little difficulty. But this simplicity is their greatest charm, and is not to be attained by ordinary writers. Would the sentiments of this passage clothed in any other metre be half so touching and beautiful? We must beg the reader to allow us one more quotation, sustaining our vindication of Mr. Longfellow's choice of metre. It is from the concluding canto, if we may so speak of the poem, and describes the incidents of Hiawa tha's departure.

"On the shore stood Hiawatha,

Turned and waved his hand at parting;

On the clear and luminous water

Launched his birch canoe for sailing,
From the pebbles of the margin
Shoved it forth into the water;

Whispered to it, 'Westward! Westward!'
And with speed it darted forward.
"And the evening sun descending
Set the clouds on fire with redness,
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,
Left upon the level water

One long track and trail of splendor,
Down whose stream, as down a river,
Westward, westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,

Sailed into the dusk of evening."

Is not this a fine description? Is it not natural and suggestive and truly poetical? The frequent repetitions of words and phrases, which have been severely censured by some, appear to us to be managed with such perfect art as to conduce, to a very great degree, to the general finish and beauty of the poem. But, after all, we must make our final question this: Is the metre of the "Song of Hiawatha" the one which the best expresses the style of Indian conversation, the easy and musical flow of their language, and the best describes the peculiarities of their manners and customs, and the scenes where their lives were spent? To this question we answer, Yes.

Mr. Longfellow has been much blamed for want of originality in the thoughts of his poems. A late critic in Putnam has shown that his Psalm of Life is made up from German, Roman, English, Latin, and Teuton authors. Yet he argues that he is not for that reason to be called a plagiarist, nor to be esteemed unworthy of the praises due him for having written a beautiful and original poem. But we will not concede that Mr. Longfellow's poetry is deficient in fine and suggestive thoughts. He is not a Shakespeare, nor a Milton, nor a Byron, but a man of great learning and experience, of a highly poetical imagination, and pure and delicate tastes, who introduces into his writings a

transcript of his nature. With reference to the particular poem under consideration, he has carefully studied the Indian legends, and selected such as, in his opinion, would be of the most general interest. He has not attempted to weave them into the more elaborate styles of poetry, but has clothed them in such a garb as would seem the most natural. He has not given the song he heard "from the lips of Nawadaha," as the finished poem of a great poet, but the sweet and touching tale of an Indian maiden. Yet there are many fine thoughts in the Song of Hiawatha. In the introduction, where he invokes the attention of his reader, occurs the following:

A few days preceding the publication of Hiawatha appeared a new poem from the Poet Laureate. We intend to enter into no disquisition upon the merits of Maud, nor to institute any comparison between that poem and Hiawatha, save in one particular. Mr. Tennyson takes for his dramatis persona ladies and gentlemen, that is to say, persons supposed to be refined in their tastes and manners. Yet the