SOURCE: “Longfellow's Poems,” in Prefaces and Essays, Macmillan and Co., 1933, pp. 324-44.

In the following essay, Saintsbury counters the critical backlash against Longfellow's verse.

When the news of Longfellow's death reached London, nearly a quarter of a century ago, the evening papers published it just at the meeting time of a small private literary dining-club, of which he, Victor Hugo, and one or two other great foreigners were members. I happened to be in the chair (or vice-chair, I forget which) that evening; and thus it fell to my lot to propose the toast of his name, with the silent honours usual in such cases. I might, I think, have claimed the office by something more than right of accident. For few people can have been “brought up” upon at least the earlier works of the poet, as far as Hiawatha, more than I was from childhood; and...