HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
Wherever the English language is spoken, the name of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has become a household word, and there is scarcely a library, however humble, but can boast a well-worn volume of his tender songs,—songs that
"Have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer."
He was born in the city of Portland, Maine, on the 27th of February, 1807, and was the son of the Hon. Stephen Longfellow, a distinguished lawyer of that city. The house in which he was born was a square wooden structure, built many years before, and large and roomy. It stood upon the outskirts of the town, on the edge of the sea, and was separated from the water only by a wide street. From its windows the dreamy boy, who grew up within its walls, could look out upon the dark, mysterious ocean, and, lying awake in his little bed in the long winter nights, he could listen to its sorrowful roar as it broke heavily upon the shore. That he was keenly alive to the fascination of such close intimacy with the ocean, we have abundant proof in his writings.
He was carefully educated in the best schools of the city, and at the age of fourteen entered Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, where he graduated in his nineteenth year. He was an industrious student,