ate on almost any summer day early in this century a blue-eyed, brown-haired lad might have been seen lying under a great apple-tree in the garden of an old house in Portland, forgetful of everything else in the world save the book he was reading.
The boy was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the book might have been Robinson Crusoe, The Arabian Nights, Don Quixote, all of which were favorites; or possibly it was Irving's Sketch Book, of which he was so fond that even the covers delighted him, and whose charm remained unbroken throughout life. Years afterward, when, as a famous man of letters, he was called upon to pay his tribute to the memory of Irving, he could think of no more tender praise than to speak with grateful affection of the book which had so fascinated him as a boy, and whose pages still led him back into the "haunted chamber of youth."
It was during Longfellow's childhood that the British ship Boxer was captured by the Enterprise in the famous sea-fight of the war of 1812; the two captains who had fallen in the battle were buried side by side in the cemetery at Portland, and the whole town came together to do honor to the dead commanders. Long years afterward Longfellow speaks of this incident in his poem entitled "My Lost Youth," and recalls the sounds of the cannon booming over the waters, and the solemn stillness that followed the news of the victory.
THE SPANISH SAILORS WITH BEARDED LIPS.
It is in this same poem that we have a picture of the Portland of his early life, and are given glimpses of the black wet wharves where were the ships moored, and the Spanish sailors, "with bearded lips," who seemed as much a mystery to the boy as the ships themselves. These came and went across the sea, always watched and waited for with greatest interest by the children who loved the excitement of the unloading and loading, the shouts of the surveyors who were measuring the contents of cask and hogshead, the songs of the negroes working the pulleys, the jolly good nature of the seamen strolling through the streets, and, above all, the sight of the strange treasures that came from time to time into one home or another—bits of coral, beautiful sea-shells, birds of resplendent plumage, foreign coins, which looked odd even in Portland, where all the money nearly was Spanish, and the hundred and one things dear to the hearts of sailors and children. It was during his school-boy days that Longfellow published his first bit of verse. It was inspired by hearing the story of a famous fight which took place on the shores of a small lake called Lovell's Pond, between the two Lovells and the Indians. Longfellow was deeply impressed by this story, and threw his feeling of admiration into four stanzas, which he carried with a beating heart down to the letter-box of the Portland Gazette, taking an opportunity to slip the manuscript in when no one was looking.
HIS FIRST POEM.
The next morning Longfellow watched his father unfold the paper, read it, slowly before the fire, and finally leave the room, when the sheet was grasped by the boy and his sister, who shared his confidence, and hastily scanned. The poem was there in the "poets' corner" of the Gazette, and Longfellow was so filled with exultant joy that he spent the greater part of the remainder of the day in reading and rereading the verses, becoming convinced toward evening that they promised remarkable merit. His happiness was dimmed, however, a few hours later, when the father of a boy friend, with whom he was passing the evening, pronounced the verses stiff and entirely lacking in originality. Longfellow slipped away as soon as possible to nurse his wounded feelings in his own room, and instead of letting the incident discourage him, began with renewed vigor to write verses, epigrams, essays, and tragedies, which he produced in a literary partnership with one of his boy friends. None of these effusions had any literary value, being no better than any boy of thirteen or fourteen would produce if he turned his attention to literature instead of to bat and ball.
Longfellow remained in Portland until his sixteenth year, when he went to Bowdoin College, entering the Sophomore Class. Here he remained for three years, gradually coining a name for scholarship and character that was second to none. However much he enjoyed college sports and fun, he never distinguished himself in any act that called for even the mildest censure from the college authorities. The love of order, the instinct of obedience to proper authority, and his naturally quiet tastes kept him from any transgression of the rules that seemed irksome to those of more excitable natures and less carefully trained. Through his entire college career Longfellow kept the respect and affection of many of the students whose natural tendencies led them often into mischief, but who none the less highly esteemed the graver qualities of their friend.