The light of love shines over all.
The ancient bridegroom and the bride
Smiling contented and serene
Upon the blithe, bewildering scene,
Behold well pleased on every side
Their forms and features multiplied.”
The impromptu remark of Mr. Longfellow to Aldrich might have been like many other impromptus thought out before. If so, however, it was under authority of a poet’s license. Perhaps it was like another of Mr. Longfellow’s impromptus, of which I heard many years ago. While attending as a delegate the National Republican Convention in Cincinnati in 1876, a party composed of James Russell Lowell, Judge E. R. Hoar, Mr. Roosevelt, the father of the President, who were also delegates, and myself, took a carriage and drove out to the estate of Nicholas Longworth to call on him and see his wine vaults. Mr. Longworth told us that Mr. Longfellow had made a recent call on him, and when introduced had said: “Mr. Longworth, you have the advantage of me, for you know Pope says, “That worth makes the man, and the want of it the fellow.” Some men would have thought of the bon mot the next day, and realized what the French call l’esprit d’escallier, a good thing thought of too late. But Mr. Longfellow was quick witted enough to think of the good thing “while going up stairs and not while going down.” There have been severe critics of Longfellow who would not have hesitated to pronounce the above impromptu deliberately prepared. They have charged him with plagiarism, and have said that the “Psalm of Life” is composed of thoughts from Gœthe and Calderon and Schiller, and have declared that “there is not one striking image, and barely one striking phrase in the poem which originated absolutely with himself.” They also claim that from Soame Jennyn’s was taken the substance of those beautiful lines:
“Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”
But these critics cannot deny that the dress in which the above thoughts were clothed, and in which they captivate the reader, were his own. Would any one on the following statement of facts claim that Webster was a plagiarist? Rev. Dr. John Pierpont wrote for the Plymouth celebration on the 22d of December, 1824, a hymn containing the following stanza: