knew how to pick out these. He selected among others the legend of Sandalphon, and gave to it a new interpretation.

Have ye read in the Talmud of old,
In the legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realm of the air,
Have you read it,-the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the city celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?

The angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below

From the spirits on earth that adore,
From the souls that entreat and implore

In the fervour and passion of prayer;
From the hearts that are broken with losses,
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,—
A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore,
Yet the old mediæval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,

But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps as the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.

It is impossible to read the poem once and ever forget it. Not only is it beautiful music; it is one of the most successful of Longfellow's short poems in the beauty of its images and fancies. The man who can not feel the charm of it can not feel at all. Perhaps I had better make a few notes about those thoughts of it which seem to need a little explanation.

The reference to Jacob's dream you will find in the Book of Genesis-he saw in that dream a ladder rising from earth to heaven, and angels going up and down this ladder. The Talmud has many other stories about the ladder, and they say that Sandalphon always stands at the top of the steps. There he receives the prayers of men as they rise up to heaven; and as he touches them they are changed into celestial flowers and are passed on into Paradise, to make beautiful the ways. According to the old legends there were angels for every element,-angels of water and fire, rain and snow, light and heat, angels for each of the seasons, for each of the virtues, for each of the different branches of knowl

but the last part of the poem, hinting of the Cursed Cities of the Bible, shows how skilfully Poe could blend different epochs together. Now all this and much more which might be mentioned, exemplifies the methods of the romantics in all countries in France, in Germany, and in England. The romantics made new effects by blending many old elements into novel combinations. Poe, however, did this in so individual a way as to give his poetry a character that no other English verse possessed. Small as the bulk of his work is -the very smallest perhaps of any realy great poet-it will repay study of the most careful sort, and no one who makes the study can quite escape the influence of the writer.

In concluding these notes upon the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, it is worth while to comment upon the circumstances that made him such a poet. Remember that he was the son of a law student, who fell in love with a young actress, and gave up his profession and his prospects in order to marry her and become an actor. This romantic union was thus an affair of youthful passion and youthful idealism; both of these persons were affectionately imaginative, and ready to sacrifice everything for an idea. They both died young, leaving their little boy to be taken care of by strangers. The little boy was pretty, delicate, sensitive, imaginative, with the soul of an artist, inheriting the talents of both parents and probably the weaknesses of both. Under happy conditions he would perhaps have produced very different work. But he grew up under the supervision of strangers, in a country where the practical side of life only was esteemed, and the work of imagination treated with little respect. The young man's dreams, ambitions, and tastes, could not be taken seriously. He found himself, after making several blunders in life, doomed to remain without intellectual sympathy. He found no friendships in the dreariness of American city life. He was thrown back upon himself, forced to find consolation and companionship in dreams. This is one of the many cases in which

we may suppose that literature has gained from the unhappiness of the author. Most poets are said to write poetry because they are unhappy; this is not altogether true, though there is some truth in it. But in Poe's case it was true. If he had been placed in fortunate surroundings, with leisure and with money, it is quite possible that he would nevertheless have produced remarkable work of some kind. But certainly, as a happy man, he would not have produced the wonderful prose stories and poems that have given him a unique place in nineteenth century literature, and that have affected and improved the best work of the generations after him both in prose and in verse.

CHAPTER X

ON A PROPER ESTIMATE OF LONGFELLOW

WITHIN the last fifteen or twenty years it has become too much of a practice with the young scholars and many critics to speak disparagingly of the American poet Longfellow, who exercised over Tennyson's generation an influence and a charm second only to that of Tennyson himself. For this sudden reaction against Longfellow, the critics are only partly responsible; the character of the present generation may partly account for it. The critics say what is very true, that Longfellow is only a second class poet, because his versification was never brought to that high point which the greatest poetry demands. But this does not mean that he should not be studied. Second class poetry may often be quite as important in its way as first class poetry; it may possess emotional beauty that the first class poetry can not show. Perfect verse means only perfect form, and form is not the most important quality of poetry by any means. Nevertheless, as soon as it had been shown that Longfellow's hexameters were faulty, young scholars set the fashion of sneering at Longfellow. This fashion has now become rather general; and I want to protest against it. Some of its utterances have been quite unreasonable, not to say unjust. I remember when the great publishers Macmillan brought out a beautiful edition of Longfellow some years ago, several English journals deplored the publication, saying that Longfellow was not worthy to figure in the great series of poets published by that firm. This was utter prejudice and utter nonsense. Except Tennyson, no other poet of the English language had been so much read in England as Longfellow, and I think he will still be read and much