hose declining age is cheered by the glorious
fruition of the seed sown in his youth and prime. Few, indeed, are given
so great a privilege; and few, having lived so long and worked so hard,
can say with him, that during such a long and exposed career, "I have
never been overtaken in any scandalous sin, though my shortcomings and
imperfections have been without number." A man who can boast such a
record, though he be as poor in purse as this simple-hearted backwoods
preacher, has earned a Great Fortune indeed, for his treasure is one
that can not be taken from him, since it is laid up in Heaven, "where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break
through nor steal."

IX.

AUTHORS.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

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, and
stood high in his classes. He gave brilliant promise of his future
eminence as a poet in several productions written during his college
days, which were published in a Boston journal called the "United States
Literary Gazette." Among these were the "Hymn of the Moravian Nuns,"
"The Spirit of Poetry," "Woods in Winter," and "Sunrise on the Hills."

Upon leaving