on his return. There he remained six years, leaving in 1834 to become a professor in Harvard College. His first book of poems, Voices of the Night, appeared in 1839, and two years later he published Ballads and other Poems. Both volumes were received cordially and had a wide circulation. Other important later works were Evangeline (1847), Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (finished 1873). In 1854 he left off teaching and settled down to a quiet literary life. During a trip to Europe in 1868 he was given honorary degrees by both Oxford and Cambridge. He died in Boston in 1882. It is a testimonial to his popularity in England that his bust was placed in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, the only memorial to an American author there.

Longfellow was a scholarly and cultured poet, influenced much by foreign literatures and proficient in translation. His verse is rarely impassioned, but is usually simple, smooth, and polished. America has had no finer narrative poet; and it is unquestionable that this form of poetry was well adapted to his genius, which was fluent, but not often strongly emotional.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS (Page 211)

Longfellow's diary for the date December 17, 1839, contains the following entry: "News of shipwrecks horrible on the coast. Twenty bodies washed ashore near Gloucester, one lashed to a piece of wreck. There is a reef called Norman's Woe, where many of these took place; among others the schooner Hesperus I must write a ballad upon this." Two weeks later he wrote: "I sat last evening till twelve o'clock by my fire, smoking, when suddenly it came into my mind to write the Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus,' which I accordngly did. Then I went to bed, but I could not sleep.

New

thoughts were running in my mind, and I got up to add them to the ballad. It was three by the clock. I then went to bed and fell asleep. I feel pleased with the ballad. It hardly cost me an effort. It did not come into my mind by lines, but by stanzas." Published first in 1841 in Ballads and Other Poems.

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE (Page 214)

Published in 1863 as The Landlord's Tale in the first series of Tales of a Wayside Inn.

General Gage, commander of the British forces in Boston and vicinity, despatched, on the night of April 18, 1775, a body of troops to seize stores said to be concealed at Concord. According to the story, Paul Revere spread the warning throughout the surrounding country, and when the British arrived at Lexington they found a small body of militia lined up to oppose them. A skirmish ensued in which the first blood of the war was spilled, several being killed and others wounded.

2. Paul Revere (1735-1818) was a goldsmith and engraver who became one of the most active of the colonial patriots.

9. North Church. There is some dispute as to what church is referred to here. A tablet on the front of Christ Church, Salem Street, Boston, points that out as the church from which the lanterns were hung. Other good authorities, however, support the claims of the North Church, formerly standing in North Square, but now torn down.

88. Medford is on the Mystic River about five miles northwest of Boston.

102. Concord is about nineteen miles northwest of Boston.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807, and died at Hampton Falls, New

Hampshire, September 7, 1892. Whittier's ancestors for several generations had been New England farmers on the same farm where the original Whittier immigrant had settled. The family was too poor to give Whittier an education, so that two terms at Haverhill Academy, the tuition for which he paid by shoemaking and school teaching, completed his school training. He early became interested in journalism, and was employed in editorial work in Boston and in Hartford. When abolition became an agitation, Whittier became one of the leaders. He was instrumental in bringing the English Abolitionist, George Thompson, to America; and, while on a tour with him, was stoned and shot at by a mob in Concord, New Hampshire. Later, when he was editor of the Philadelphia Freeman, his office was burned by a mob. During this period he wrote many anti-slavery poems, such as the Ballads, Anti-Slavery Poems, etc., of 1838 and the Voices of Freedom of 1841. In spite of his interest in politics, for he was twice elected to the Massachusetts legislature, Whittier led a very simple life in accordance with his Quaker beliefs. He never married, partly, it seems, because he had the care of his mother and sister Elizabeth, until the latter's death in 1864. The latter part of his life he lived at Amesbury and Danvers, Massachusetts.

Whittier's poetry is of three kinds. He is at times more thoroughly than any other writer the poet of New England country life; again he is essentially an anti-slavery poet; and, finally, he has written many religious poems. His best-known poem is Snow-Bound, which gives an admirable picture of a farmer's life in the hard storms of a New England winter.

SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE (Page 219)

3. Apuleius's Golden Ass. Apuleius was a Roman satirist who lived in the first half of the second century. His most

celebrated work was Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass, a satirical romance to ridicule Christianity.

4. Calender's horse of brass. See the story in the Arabian Nights.

6. Islam's prophet on Al-Borák. Mohammed was believed to make his journeys between heaven and earth upon a creature, which some say was a camel, named Al-Borák. (The word signifies lightning.)

26. Bacchus; the god of wine and revelry. A Bacchanalian revel was a common subject for decorations.

30. Mænads; women who attended Bacchus, the god of wine, waving, as they danced and sang, the thyrsus, a wand entwined with ivy and surmounted by a pine cone.

35. Chaleur Bay; an inlet of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, between Gaspé and New Brunswick. It is a great resort for mackerel fishing.

BARCLAY OF URY (Page 222)

Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of the Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. 'I find more satisfaction,' said Barclay, ' as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor.'”—WHITTIER.

1. Aberdeen; a city in northeastern Scotland. 2. Kirk; the Scotch word for church.

3. Laird; lord.

10. Carlin; Scotch word for old woman.

35. Lützen; a town in Saxony, province of Prussia.

56. Tilly. "The barbarities of Count de Tilly after the siege of Magdeburg made such an impression upon our forefathers that the phrase 'like old Tilly' is still heard sometimes in New England of any piece of special ferocity."— WHITTIER. 57. Walloon; from certain provinces of Belgium.

81. Snooded. The snood was a band which a Scottish maiden wore in her hair as a sign of her maidenhood.

99. Tolbooth; a name commonly applied to a Scottish prison.

117. Fallow; ploughed but unsown land.

BARBARA FRIETCHIE (Page 226)

"This poem was written in strict conformity to the account of the incident as I had it from respectable and trustworthy sources. It has since been the subject of a good deal of conflicting testimony, and the story was probably incorrect in some of its details. It is admitted by all that Barbara Frietchie was no myth, but a worthy and highly esteemed gentlewoman, intensely loyal and a hater of the Slavery Rebellion, holding her Union flag sacred and keeping it with her Bible; that when the Confederates halted before her house, and entered her dooryard, she denounced them in vigorous language, shook her cane in their faces, and drove them out; and when General Burnside's troops followed close upon Jackson's, she waved her flag and cheered them. It is stated that May Quantrell, a brave and loyal lady in another part of the city, did wave her flag in sight of the Confederates. It is possible that there has been a blending of the two incidents." WHITTIER.