s eminently just:

'The great characteristic of LONGFELLOW, that of addressing the
moral nature through the imagination, of linking moral truth to
intellectual beauty, is a far greater excellence. His artistical
ability is admirable, because it is not seen. It is rather mental
than mechanical. The best artist is he who accommodates his
diction to his subject. In this sense, LONGFELLOW is an artist. By
learning 'to labor and to wait,' by steadily brooding over the
chaos in which thought and emotion first appear to the mind, and
giving shape and life to both, before uttering them in words, he
has obtained a singular mastery over expression. By this we do not
mean that he has a large command of language. No fallacy is
greater than that which confounds fluency with expression.
Washerwomen, and boys at debating clubs, often display more
fluency than WEBSTER; but his words are to theirs, as the roll of
thunder to the patter of rain. Language often receives its
significance and power from the person who uses it. Unless
permeated by the higher faculties of the mind, unless it be not
the clothing, but the 'incarnation of thought,' it is quite an
humble power. There are some writers who repose undoubting
confidence in words. If their minds be filled with the epithets of
poetry, they fondly deem that they have clutched its essence. In a
piece of inferior verse, we often observe a great array of
expressions which have been employed with great effect by genius,
but which seem to burn the fingers and disconcert the equanimity
of the aspiring word-catcher who presses them into his service.
Felicity, not fluency, of language is a merit.'

Exactly; yet these same 'fluent' versifiers are the persons who talk with
elaborate flippancy of the 'simple common-places' of this noble poet! The
reviewer adds: 'LONGFELLOW has a perfect command of that expression which
results from restraining rather than cultivating fluency; and his manner
is adapted to his theme. He rarely, if ever, mistakes 'emotions for
conceptions.' His words are often pictures of his thought. He selects with
great delicacy and precision the exact phrase which best expresses or
suggests his idea. He colors his style with the skill of a painter. The
warm flush and bright tints, as well as the most evanescent hues of
language, he uses with admirable discretion. In that higher