erbom's sentimental reveries and nocturnal melancholy. The
Phosphorist is unquestionably right, however, in asserting that as a
theory of life the one is as limited and imperfect as the other. It was
because of the abhorrence of all the darker phases of existence that
Tegner's bright Hellenic muse never struck those notes which thrill
with deepest resonance through the human heart. Tegner's acquaintance
with suffering during the early part of his career was chiefly a
literary one, and like Goethe he went far out of his way to avoid the
sight of it. As there can be no victory without combat--no laurel
without dust--the Mount of Transfiguration is not reached except through
the valley of the Shadow of Death.

There are, however, many fair flowers to be plucked in Tempe and the
blooming vales of Arcady. Goethe had in 1798 published "Hermann and
Dorothea," the form of which was Greek, though the theme was Teutonic;
and Tegner's "Children of the Lord's Supper" (1820), which Longfellow
has translated so admirably into English, derived its inspiration
primarily from the German idyl:

"Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come, the church of the village
Stood, gleaming white in the morning sheen. On the spire of the belfry,
Decked with a brazen cock, the friendly flames of the spring sun
Glanced like the tongues of fire beheld by Apostles aforetime."

Thus run the beautiful, stately hexameters, which, whatever cavilling
critics may say, are delightfully adapted for epic narrative in any
fairly polysyllabic language. And Swedish, which is the most sonorous of
all Germanic tongues, and full of Gothic strength, produces the most
delectable effects in the long, rolling line of slow-marching dactyls
and spondees. The tempered realism of Tegner, which shuns all that is
harsh and trite, accords well with the noble classical verse. He employs
it, as it were, to dignify his homely tale, as Raphael draped the
fishermen of Galilee in the flowing robes of Greek philosophers. The
description of the church, the rustic youth, and the patriarchal
clergyman has, however, the note of experience and the touch of earth
which we miss in the more declamatory passages. If, however, declamation
is anywhere in place it is in the three orations of the rural parson,
which occupy the larger portion of the poem. It is all very lovely and
edifying; full of sacred eloquence and a grand amplitude of phrase which
is distinctly clerical.

The ro