and on the sides are the dates—
"Born at Portland, U.S.A., February 27, 1807.
Died at Cambridge, U.S.A., March 24, 1882."
Mr. J. Russell Lowell was present at the ceremony, and gave an address, in which he stated that—
"Longfellow's mind always moved straight towards its object, was always permeated with the emotions, and gave them the frankest, the sincerest, and, at the same time, the most simple expression; and never was there a private character more answerable to public performance than that of Longfellow. His nature was consecrated ground, into which no unclean spirit could ever enter."
This tribute to his memory, paid by one who had known him for nearly forty years, sufficiently explains the reason why, in the parodies of his works which are now to be given, nothing of a personal nature will be inserted. Indeed it is doubtful whether one unkindly worded, or spiteful burlesque was ever penned about either Longfellow, or his works. The absence of this element will be all the more noticeable as following directly after the parodies of the Poet Laureate, whose actions and writings have invited so many attacks. Tennyson's early sneers at hereditary nobility, as contrasted with his adulation of royalty, and the exaggerated praise of princes in his official poems of later years. His involved, and often obscure, mode of writing, especially when attempting to deal with metaphysical topics; his narrow insular prejudices; his frequent writings in praise of war, and calling aloud for the blood of either the French, or the Russians, or the Spaniards. And, lastly, his acceptance of a coronet which sits grotesquely enough on the laurels he so long has worn as Poet Laureate.
In all this there was ample room for adverse comment, which the life and works of Longfellow never afforded. The tenderness, the grace, the sweet pathos, and the exquisite simplicity of his poems, combined with the purity, charity, and kindness of his personal character, were such that detraction, envy, and malice were dumb, and criticism itself was almost silenced.
Hence the parodies will be found to consist principally of imitations of his style, language, or ideas, or of reproductions of his poems in a grotesque form. In some cases a few verses of the original are given for the convenience of comparison with the parodies.
A NOBLE AMBITION.
Tell me not in mournful numbers,