humor, which the contrast between the thoughts and characters of the two heightens almost to pathos.  The pictures of Priscilla spinning, and the bridal procession, are also masterly.  We feel charmed to see such exquisite imaginations conjured out of the little old familiar anecdote of John Alden’s vicarious wooing.  We are astonished, like the fisherman in the Arabian tale, that so much genius could be contained in so small and leaden a casket.  Those who cannot associate sentiment with the fair Priscilla’s maiden name of Mullins may be consoled by hearing that it is only a corruption of the Huguenot Desmoulins—­as Barnum is of the Norman Vernon.

Indifferent poets comfort themselves with the notion that contemporary popularity is no test of merit, and that true poetry must always wait for a new generation to do it justice.  The theory is not true in any general sense.  With hardly an exception, the poetry that was ever to receive a wide appreciation has received it at once.  Popularity in itself is no test of permanent literary fame, but the kind of it is and always has been a very decided one.  Mr. Longfellow has been greatly popular because he so greatly deserved it.  He has the secret of all the great poets—­the power of expressing universal sentiments simply and naturally.  A false standard of criticism has obtained of late, which brings a brick as a sample of the house, a line or two of condensed expression as a gauge of the poem.  But it is only the whole poem that is a proof of the poem, and there are twenty fragmentary poets, for one who is capable of simple and sustained beauty.  Of this quality Mr. Longfellow has given repeated and striking examples, and those critics are strangely mistaken who think that what he does is easy to be done, because he has the power to make it seem so.  We think his chief fault is a too great tendency to moralize, or rather, a distrust of his readers, which leads him to point out the moral which he wishes to be drawn from any special poem.  We wish, for example, that the last two stanzas could be cut off from “The Two Angels,” a poem which, without them, is as perfect as anything in the language.

Many of the pieces in this volume having already shone as captain jewels in Maga’s carcanet, need no comment from us; and we should, perhaps, have avoided the delicate responsibility of criticizing one of our most precious contributors, had it not been that we have seen some very unfair attempts to depreciate Mr. Longfellow, and that, as it seemed to us, for qualities which stamp him as a true and original poet.  The writer who appeals to more peculiar moods of mind, to more complex or more esoteric motives of emotion, may be a greater favorite with the few; but he whose verse is in sympathy with moods that are human and not personal, with emotions that do not belong to periods in the development of individual minds, but to all men in all years, wins the gratitude and love of whoever can read the language which he makes musical