Puritan story, which no one but a critic would care to
question. We think, however, that the ancient fable of Europa is
likely to have suggested the ride to Duxbury on the back of the bull,
for at that time there were few cattle in the colonies.

"'The Tales of a Wayside Inn,'" said Mr. Longfellow, "received that
name merely to give them locality. I had never been in the Wayside
Inn, but once." (We think that he stopped there on his first return
from Europe when travelling from Albany to Boston, on which road there
were the White Horse, Red Horse (Wayside), and Black Horse Inns.) "I
had written the stories in verse, and I wished to connect them with a
sympathetic place and a company of story-tellers. My friends were
accustomed to dine occasionally at the Wayside Inn, and it seemed a
pleasing fancy to place my story-tellers there." The Poet of the
company was Mr. Parsons, the Dante scholar; the Theologian, Mr. Wales;
the Sicilian, Luigi Monte, an exile from Sicily, whom President
Lincoln sent back in an official capacity, under the influence of
Charles Sumner, when Sicily became free during the Italian revolution;
the Jew was Edrika, an accomplished Boston merchant.

"Paul Revere's Ride" is perhaps the most popular, and the "Vision
Beautiful" the most philosophical, of these many tales. The story of
"Lady Wentworth" is a most charming story of old New England
folk-lore, and wears the quaint and sympathetic colorings of colonial
times.

"I have given up the theory," said Mr. Longfellow, "that the old stone
tower at Newport is to be connected with the Norsemen. I feel certain
now that it is merely a windmill. I have a model of just such a mill,
which was a common sight on the coasts of the North Sea." His
residence in Scandinavia as a student gave him a love of the
literature of the North, and hence his tales from the Sagas.

The melodious and sympathetic qualities of Longfellow's verse meet
well the wants of the composer. The songs of the poet are more and
more being wedded to music. "The Bridge," "The Rainy Day," "The Day is
Done," "The Legend of the Crossbill," "The Silent Land," "Allah," "The
Sea Hath its Pearls" (translation), and many other poems have found
expression in musical art as inspired and beautiful as themselves, and
thus winged will long go singing through the world. The English
composers have thus far been the best interpreters of his songs.

His view of literature at that time, when he had made his