PREFATORY NOTICE.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW was born in the city of Portland, State of Maine, on the 27th February 1807. His parents, who were in easy circumstances, sent him at the age of fourteen to Bowdoin College, in the neighbouring town of Brunswick; and in 1825, after the usual curriculum of four years, he graduated there with high honours. In that same year he entered the law-office of his father; but in a few months he was relieved from the uncongenial study of law by a proposal on the part of his alma mater, which, more than any possible diploma, attests the kind as well as the degree of merit he must have displayed, and the reputation he had acquired during his attendance at College. It was proposed to found a Professorship of Modern Languages in Bowdoin College; and this Professorship was offered to Longfellow, though yet in his teens, and not specially prepared for the work. The College authorities, however, were not mistaken in their estimate of Longfellow's fitness, intellectual and moral. Immediately on accepting their offer, he crossed the Atlantic to thoroughly prepare himself for his professional duties by a residence of three years and a half in England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Holland; and from 1829 to 1835 he prelected with so great success, and even éclat, in Bowdoin College, that, on the Professorship of Modern Languages and Belles Lettres in the University of Cambridge, Massachusetts, becoming vacant in the latter of these two years, he was at once invited to fill the chair. On occasion of this advancement he took another year in Europe, spending most of it in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, for the purpose of gaining a farther insight into the literature of Northern Europe. In 1836, therefore, he commenced his professional labours at Cambridge; and ever since that time