The poem was there in the "poets' corner" of the
_Gazette_, and Longfellow was so filled with exultant joy that he spent
the greater part of the remainder of the day in reading and rereading
the verses, becoming convinced toward evening that they promised
remarkable merit. His happiness was dimmed, however, a few hours later,
when the father of a boy friend, with whom he was passing the evening,
pronounced the verses stiff and entirely lacking in originality.
Longfellow slipped away as soon as possible to nurse his wounded
feelings in his own room, and instead of letting the incident discourage
him, began with renewed vigor to write verses, epigrams, essays, and
tragedies, which he produced in a literary partnership with one of his
boy friends. None of these effusions had any literary value, being no
better than any boy of thirteen or fourteen would produce if he turned
his attention to literature instead of to bat and ball.

Longfellow remained in Portland until his sixteenth year, when he went
to Bowdoin College, entering the Sophomore Class. Here he remained for
three years, gradually coining a name for scholarship and character that
was second to none. However much he enjoyed college sports and fun, he
never distinguished himself in any act that called for even the mildest
censure from the college authorities. The love of order, the instinct of
obedience to proper authority, and his naturally quiet tastes kept him
from any transgression of the rules that seemed irksome to those of more
excitable natures and less carefully trained. Through his entire college
career Longfellow kept the respect and affection of many of the students
whose natural tendencies led them often into mischief, but who none the
less highly esteemed the graver qualities of their friend.

Immediately after his graduation he was offered the chair of modern
languages in Bowdoin, with permission from the college authorities to
visit Europe for the purpose of fitting himself for his new duties.
Accordingly at the age of nineteen Longfellow sailed for France,
visiting also Spain, Italy, and Germany, meeting with adventure
everywhere, and storing up memory after memory that came back in
after-years to serve some purpose of his art. We have thus preserved in
his works the impressions that Europe then made upon a young American
who had come there to supplement his education by studying at the
universities, and whose mind was alive to all the culture deni